Suffer and Save
by kingsmeadroad
Summary: Sequel to Fair and Foul. When Emily is suddenly lost, the search to find her will wreak havoc and destruction through the BAU, so deeply affecting the man she loves that he must question everything- even himself.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything Criminal Minds related. Characters are merely borrowed and will be put back later. ;)**

**A/N: And so here it is. The sequel to Fair and Foul. I hope you enjoy it- but note that it's dark, gruesome and extremely angsty in places. Let me know what you think! Apologies for the wait; the exams took over. Cramming! :D**

**Suffer and Save**

**Prologue**

"_If only. Those must be the two saddest words in the world."_

_Mercedes Lackey_

Emily smiled to herself when she pulled away from him. She felt safe with his arms clasped around her hips, his nose nuzzling her hair, the warmth of the hallway making her feel at home, satisfied and content.

"Go Aaron. You have to see Jack," she softly, reluctantly, admonished him. He smiled into her hair and nodded his head, resting his hand against her cheek for a second, kissing her once more, and wishing her a quiet "goodnight", before he left her in the hall near her apartment and left the building. He was already late.

Emily hung around for a second, trying to still her beating heart. She figured that, after half a year together, her emotions would have become accustomed to him- but that had simply never materialised. She was still as lost in him as she had been from the very first night- which she could still recall in intricate detail when she wanted to. She closed her eyes and sighed gently, glad that the last case was behind them. It was one of the better ones, with a happy ending.

But then again, no case was truly a good one.

***

Aaron exited the hall and half ran down the steps to the ground floor, finding his car quickly and diving in, barely noticing his surroundings, starting the ignition a little too fast, making the car splutter, and within seconds, he pulled away into the dark street, checking his watch to see how late he was. It was 9.44. He was supposed to get Jack at quarter to ten. He was going to be quite late-Haley wouldn't be happy. He drove on quickly, fighting the case exhaustion so that he could see his son- his post case tradition.

***

She took a breath and headed to her front door, pulling the key from her door and stepping through quietly, tossing her keys on the table by the door and pulling her jacket off, leaving it on the chair in the hall. She turned on the hall light and wandered toward the kitchen for her customary cup of tea before a long soak in the bath to relax, and then as many hours sleep as she could fit.

She only got about five feet into her apartment when something heavy hit the side of her head. She felt the muscles in her neck strain as she struggled to retain her balance and jeep herself upright. She turned to face the right direction, but something barrelled into her, tossing her to the floor with ease. Her home was her sanctuary; she didn't ever protect herself here, she never needed to.

She felt, more than saw, the man in her apartment throw himself in her direction again. He grabbed her hair viciously and pulled her half to her feet, glaring into his eyes and she winced at the hissing pain in her head. Her heart was thumping again- but in the wrong way. She tried to yell, and opened her mouth to do so, wanting to scream at Aaron to come back, to help her, to save her. But just as her voice echoed out, her attacker's closed fist made contact with her cheek, and she felt a funny crack in her face. He had broken her cheekbone, and it was agonising after about three seconds. Groaning to herself, a few tears spilled from her eyes and she tried to blink them away.

She was pissed off as well as upset, and she spat violently, the blood spattering across the short void between them and landing on his jacket. She knew immediately that it had been a bad move, but she caught herself in a brazen moment of not caring. She got to her feet quickly when he tossed her down again, and she threw herself at him, beating her fists against him , noting the bulging muscles on his tanned arms, the strong chest in front of her- and the fact that he was about seven inches or so taller than her. In all, she was well aware that unless she got out of her apartment, she was never going to get away from him.

She did what any smart woman does, and kicked him, _hard_, where it was likely to hurt most. He crouched over immediately, in agony, furious and winded. She made her move, and ran for the door immediately, grabbing her bag as she pulled it open and ran outside, her heels banging against the floor as she heard him get to his feet.

In a panic, Emily pulled her phone from her bag, screaming and roaring for help, dialling Aaron's number but not listening to see whether he picked up or not. She beat her fists against the door of the next apartment she came to, and saw the man beating down the hall at high speed behind her. She wasn't going to get away, she realised with a sinking in her stomach.

He was on top of her within seconds as she ran, breath heaving in her chest. Her phone clattered to the ground and she knew immediately that it was broken. Her bag was dropped; the only thing she had left was the FBI tag in her pants pocket to prove her identity. Her lungs were burning, her heart felt as though it was going to explode, and the feeling of nausea in her stomach got worse with each passing second. She toppled to the ground harshly, her knees scratching on the floor, her legs stuck under his tremendous weight.

He dragged her again, back down to the hall to her apartment; and he dragged her with ease and quickly. She continued to scream and roar- but she had a sinking feeling that nobody could hear her. The doors here had been soundproofed some years before, and she knew that they would never know what was going on. She knew though that there was a CCTV camera nearby, and she knew that it would see her, so she knew that there would be an automatic clue. Nonetheless, she still felt awful.

And then when they were near her apartment, he seemed unable to hold on much longer. He turned to face her lying body and tossed her legs back to the floor. As she scrambled to get to her feet again, he grasped her arm roughly and banged her head and torso against the white wall behind her. She instantly felt light headed, but was determined not to pass out. He slapped her sharply and she cried out. The sting in her cheek was worsened by the broken bone she knew was waiting to burst into life again. He pulled her with him as he moved again, yanking her along relatively easily; there was nothing she could do to stop him.

When they got back to her apartment, he closed the door and threw her across the ground again. Her hands and arms burned against the carpet and for some reason, her nose was also bleeding. She guarded her head when he came to stand over her, afraid that he would hit her and she would pass out. But he had no intention of doing that. He needed to see her suffer. He kicked her, hard in the stomach, and watched as she convulsed in front of him, trying to breathe and failing, a full blown panic attack taking over her sense of reason.

Before she could even properly think, something light pricked her skin and she passed out.

***

In the weeks to come, Aaron Hotchner would wish, time and time and time and time again, that he had stayed with her. If only he had kissed her harder, if only he had told her he loved her, told her he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her if he could. He would wish that he had gone back to her when her call had hung up.

In the weeks to come, he would wish that he had gone into the apartment first; wish she had stayed outside; wished they had gone to see Jack together; wished they had gone to his house.

He would wish and he would wish and he would wish.

And it would make no difference.

In the weeks to come, nothing existed to pacify him. He would tear the world apart, he would scream and roar, shout to the heavens, with never an absolution.

If only he had been there.

_If only._

***


	2. Chapter One The Beginning

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything Criminal Minds related. Characters are merely borrowed and will be put back later. ;)**

**A/N: The response to the Prologue has been great. I hope you all enjoy this chapter- the next one is about Emily and the unsub. :) Let me know what you think!**

**Suffer and Save**

**Chapter One- The Beginning**

_"I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer. I was born with the evil one standing as my sponsor beside the bed where I was ushered into the world, and he has been with me since."_

_Dr H H Holmes_

Hotch made it to the office early; just as he liked it. He was determined to fine Emily early and kiss her, tell her that his visit with Jack had been wonderful and whisper to her that he loved her. She wasn't there when he arrived, but he thought nothing of it. She sometimes arrived a little bit late, as Rossi was also wont to do. Reid was sitting at his desk talking to JJ, who was in the seat next to him, a file in her hand. She was clearly waiting for Hotch.

Morgan was making coffee in the kitchenette, and Garcia was just stumbling through the door with a large, plastic, colourful bag, bangles on her wrists, hair perfectly curled and a smile on her face. Morgan saw her come in and yelled "Hey Beautiful!" and she replied, quirkily as ever, "I'll show you a good morning sweetcheeks!"

Rossi arrived shortly after her and passed a morning greeting to whoever he saw on the way to his office. Kevin walked by Rossi in order to see Penelope and blushed, still acutely uncomfortable around Rossi, given their "talk" that time, about Penelope- a "talk" which had made Dave laugh internally, though externally he had come across as cold and strict. Poor Kevin was still not over the incident, and though Rossi smiled as he walked by, Kevin scooted past him as quickly as he could, convinced that the pleasant smile was menacing.

Hotch chuckled slightly at that and moved into his office to meet JJ at exactly 8.30. He sat behind his desk and invited her to sit nearby. "What have we got?" he asked her directly. "A case in Matoaca, Virginia. It's not that far from here, but it's pretty nasty. I think it's a one you might want to look at, but there are three other possibles. They're all in the file," she said, handing it to him. He nodded at her and she rose to leave.

"JJ?" he asked suddenly, and she turned back to face him.

"Yeah?"

"Have you been talking to Emily since yesterday?"

"No, why?"

"No reason," he said, "When she arrives, if I'm in here, will you send her in to me?"

"Sure," she said, noticing that he looked a bit worried, and wondering had they maybe had a fight. She knew that Emily did a good job, and so he likely didn't want to talk to her about any aspect of her work. She shrugged off her curiosity and left, knowing that the phone on her desk was ringing nonstop, requests and cases to be dealt with in other places. Her headache wasn't helping her patience, and she knew she would struggle to maintain her calm on the phone. Even when Hotch called her at 9am to say that he had decided they should take the case down in Matoaca, she had been rather quiet and detached with him.

Sometimes, days were just exceedingly busy. Today was one of those days, though she didn't realise just how bad things were going to get. Her headache would be a great deal worse before 5pm.

By the time she got back up from her desk and tuned in to what was going on around her, she knew that something was up.

Emily had not arrived into work at all, and it was past 10.30.

Emily was never that late; if she would be late, she would tell Hotch, and since they had formed a relationship, her communication with him was obviously excellent. Morgan had been the first to really raise concerns, and then Hotch had come into the bullpen asking about her. By the time JJ got there, it was an established fact that nobody had received any emails, phone calls or texts from her. JJ rang her house phone and listened to her messages- nothing from Emily. And while JJ checked her messages, the others did the same.

Nobody had heard from Emily.

The next step was a mild panic. Emily was one of those infuriating people who never, ever skipped work. She just didn't. There were days when she would arrive sick and Aaron would literally have to bring her home in order to make her stay there; and even in her entire time with the BAU, that had happened twice and twice only- and on each occasion, she had been phoning every five minutes wanting to help instead of healing.

He stood at the head of the team and tried her cell, her house phone and even her neighbour's phone. None of them answered. So he took a deep breath and announced that he was going to make sure she was alright. He asked that they stay behind and keep working; he was sure she was okay, that maybe she had just slept in or something. It had never happened before, but that meant nothing.

He jumped into his car at lightning speed and drove like a maniac in order to get there as quickly as he could. Despite his reassurances to himself, he was sure that there was something wrong. Had she slipped in the shower? Could she have fallen down the stairs? What if she was hurt? Trying to shake off his unease, he pulled up outside her building and took a glance up to her window. Nothing seemed out of place, but he knew that he was stupid to base any assumption on a closed window.

He ran up the few steps and pushed open the door, taking the stairs two at a time, assured that his running was faster than the movement of any elevator. He reached her corridor and walked the hall quickly. On reaching her door he knocked and knocked, and then knocked some more. When she didn't answer, he pounded his fists against it and roared her name, banging on the small window next to the door that he could just about see through. Her winter coat was pegged up near it, and so his view was slightly blocked, but he was immediately unhappy with what he saw. Her coffee table was off line- almost as though it had been pushed away- and the rug she loved so much was rolled over onto itself in one or two places, uneven and ragged on the floor.

There was definitely something wrong. Panicked, he picked up the phone and dialled Morgan. "There's something wrong," he said, "I can see the table is pushed back and the rug is damaged. What should I do?"

"Jesus, break down the door man!" Morgan replied. Aaron nodded to himself and held the phone away from his ear while he shoved his leg against the door and it banged open loudly, rebounding off the inside wall and half closing again. Hotch put the phone back to his ear. "Okay, I'm looking now," he said.

Morgan, for his part, had put Hotch on loudspeaker, and the entire team had gathered around to hear. "What's going on Hotch?" Morgan said, as he heard a crunch on the line. "There's uhh... there's a broken glass on the rug...." Aaron muttered, knowing that the glass was one of Emily's favourite things; a beautiful glass of delicate Crystal JJ had given to her on her birthday.

He delicately stepped over it, his hand shaking as he held the phone, and he called out for her. The lights were out, there were signs of a scuffle, and he could only assume that she had been mugged or something like that. He walked through the kitchen and found nothing, there was nothing in the living room, she wasn't in the dining area and when he checked upstairs, she wasn't in the bathroom or the linen closet. The spare bedroom was the same, empty, and when he looked in her bedroom, he found that the bed had not been slept in and that her clothes from yesterday were not in the laundry basket. She was always oddly particular about that, preferring to get things washed and dried quite quickly. She had not taken off her clothes from yesterday.

So where the hell was she?!

He ran through the apartment yelling for her, checking everywhere, and then checking again, all the while muttering incoherently into the phone. But the facts were clear and in front of him. Emily was gone, vanished with barely a trace, nothing nearby to tell him where she was or why she had gone there; no way of knowing when or if she would be back.

And so he told the team to join him there, and he walked into the hall, impatiently pacing while he waited for them. As he paced, he looked from side to side, hoping for some sign, any sign, of anything that might help. He had been doing that for about five minutes, still impatient, when he saw a small dark box on the floor by her neighbour's apartment. Remembering that he had not gotten an answer when he rang Mr Tralker's number, he walked closer and reached down. It was Emily's phone, cracked and broken in two. He had an odd theory that Mr Tralker was either on holiday, or in trouble- and he was pretty sure that Tralker never went on holidays.

He knocked on the door once, twice, three times, and heard nothing. And just as he considered breaking that door down too, Rossi walked around the corner and met him halfway. "Show me," he said simply. In his time at the BAU, Dave had become close to Emily and knew a great deal about her. He felt protective of her and valued her as both a professional asset and a trustworthy friend. And he knew that Hotch was already falling to pieces inside. He walked into Emily's apartment and took a brief look around as Reid and JJ followed up the rear, Morgan arriving last, his face set in an angry form of determination.

"I don't get it," Morgan said, "there are no signs of a struggle outside, but isn't that her phone on the floor?"

"Yeah," Hotch intoned. "She called me last night, but I was in the car and before I could pick up, the call ended. I tried ringing her back but it didn't work. Now I know why. She must have called me for help," he said forlornly.

"JJ, call Garcia and have her check security footage in the building," Rossi said. "If she can find something, we might be able to make some kind of trace."

JJ said nothing, but stepped outside to make the call, feeling a very horrible lump of terrifying nausea forming in the pit of her stomach. "Garcia," she started, "Rossi wants you to...."

Inside Emily's apartment, Morgan took a quick look around, and noticed Reid's quiet stance. "Reid? What are you thinkin'?" he said softly.

"I'm thinking that Emily's strong. Anyone who would overpower her would need to be stronger still. Hotch, what time did the call come through?" he asked suddenly.

"About ten minutes after I left her here. And I left at about..." for a moment, he didn't remember. And then he recalled checking his watch. "It was quarter to ten. I left here at quarter to ten, just about," he said. "Why?"

"Give me your phone," Reid said, and when Hotch handed it over, he checked the missed calls. "Emily called you at 9.51."

"So?" JJ said, joining them from behind.

"So if Emily was attacked by someone, which seems evident, then Hotch may have passed that person on the stairs- or at least may have passed him by. Now that we know the call times we can try to be more specific with any footage Garcia finds."

It seemed pretty conclusive that something bad had happened to Emily; nobody doubted Reid's grim analysis. But still, the wait was a fairly silent one as they awaited Garcia's call back. Hotch pointed to the glass on the floor. "She never would have dropped that. It meant the world to her, she was always really careful of it. She barely used those glasses unless we had a night in with dinner. Is there any way to check who last used it or to take DNA from it in case whoever was here used it?" he said, half heartedly, thinking that really it was a very clinical analysis. But Rossi nodded enthusiastically "Yes, we'll do that," he said, and picked up his phone to route a CSI team to Emily's apartment.

Seconds later, JJ's phone rang and Garcia, on the other end, was in a panic. "OhmiGod ohiGod ohmiGod," she panted. "You guys have to see this. I can't reroute the footage to a cell, you'll have to come back and see it," she said, "but come quickly. She's been kidnapped."

The team ran from the apartment, leaving Rossi behind with the calmest team member, Reid, who was thinking the problem apart with his standard code of practice. He worked with the CSI team when they arrived, and before long he and Rossi were both on the way back to Quantico.

By the time they arrived, each member of the team had seen the tape at least four times. It was a poorly placed camera, showing only the corridor in front of Emily's apartment, and not showing the door of her room at all. The tape was horrific. It showed her running from the room, phone held aloft, clattering to Tralker's apartment and getting no answer before being attacked by the hulking figure chasing her down the hall at top speed. Aaron Hotchner gripped the back of the chair he stood behind tightly, trying to will himself to stay upright for as long as he could. He could feel a lump building in his throat.

They saw the phone hit the floor and fall to pieces, and they saw Emily dragged back to her own apartment. And just about twenty minutes later, the man emerged with his arm around her as she slouched, drugged, next to him. He walked with her calmly, patiently, after closing the door to her apartment. He was out of sight of that camera before too long.

"Garcia," Reid began, "we need to take the timing back a little, to when Hotch was with Emily, and then we need to try to trace all of the movements at once to see what we can find. Hotch, can you stay with us to tell us how it all happened?"

Hotch nodded but said nothing, and he was grateful when JJ stood up from the set he leaned against, allowing him to sit down and pull the chair as close to Penelope's screens as she would allow. As soon as she saw what a state he was in, she reached for his hand and squeezed it. "We'll find her," she said. "We will."

As Rossi and Morgan stood nearby, he tried to recount the previous night and watched as Penelope ran through security footage, opening files and checking pictures frame by frame, asking times and dates, while Reid carefully stole the night before form Hotch's perspective, noting it all in his perfect brain, in the hopes that it would help them find the man who had done this to Emily.


	3. Chapter Two The Devil Himself

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything Criminal Minds related. Characters are merely borrowed and will be put back later. ;)**

**A/N: This was... very hard, to write. It took hours. I hope it's alright, because it's not the last chapter that will deal with this plot point. And I apologise in advance for writing this at all. It's very, very cruel.**

**Suffer and Save**

**Chapter Two- The Devil Himself**

_"My consuming lust was to experience their bodies. I viewed them as objects, as strangers. It is hard for me to believe a human being could have done what I've done."  
__Jeffrey Dahmer_

When she woke up, she didn't know where she was or what she was doing there. She had no idea why her head felt so fuzzy and why her body felt so heavy. She didn't understand why her throat was burning and dry, and she had no idea why it was so dark and she was so confined.

What she did know, was that she was in serious trouble.

She had no idea who the man who had taken her was, and though she had been trying to profile him, she couldn't. She could recall that he was heavy and strong, that he had knocked her about as though she were a porcelain doll, and that he was angry. But other than that, she only knew that he had drugged her- what with? - and that he had brought her here.

Where was here? It was dark, and she had no way of being sure whether it was a room, a shed, an attic, a basement. Was it even a house? There was no way for her to be sure. She tried to feel about a bit, but she was tied up and she had no way of moving properly. She felt a few self pitying tears slip from her eyes, and she sniffed sharply to prevent them taking over and to prevent herself from panicking. But there was a niggling feeling in her gut that this was all going to get a hell of a lot worse before it got better.

She struggled against the tough rope around her wrists, which was connected to the ties on her ankles, forcing her into a hogtied position that allowed her no movement. She struggled uselessly and cried out intermittently, but in her heart she knew she was entirely stuck, and needed her captor to reveal himself before she could find out what was going on. Anything, she decided, would be better than this waiting, this anticipation of badness, this pain. So she yelled. She yelled and she screamed and she cried aloud for help.

And finally, finally, there was a sliver of light in the doorway. The light spread down into the room as the door opened slowly, revealing the silhouette she knew to be the man who had kidnapped her. Behind him, though she was groggy, she could see the in the splintering light that the hallway was dirty but neutrally coloured- almost clinical. It reminded her of a hostel or a hotel of sorts. She noted it for later, in case it would help. But what little she could see of the hallway was overshadowed by the knowledge that was in a basement. She could see the stairs that he would have to descend to get to her.

She shut up the second he arrived at the door, and looked up at him, trying not to let her fear pass through. She had always been good at compartmentalising, and she knew that eventually, Garcia tap the CCTV footage and would somehow hopefully manage to trace her and her captor to wherever they were. But she knew also that the security system in her building wasn't the best. She knew that the team would try to find her. She just wasn't sure whether they would or not. She saw him lock the door and move toward her out of the corner of her eye.

She felt, more than saw, him coming towards her. He was wearing heavy boots and she felt the floor shaking underneath his step. She struggled again, even though she knew it was futile, and then she was dragged to her feet viciously, her legs scraping the wooden floor under her. She gasped aloud when he pulled her face close to his and exhaled slowly, his teeth bared.

"I'm going to have some fun with you," he said slowly, maliciously. She winced slightly and felt the straining of the rope against her limbs, the friction burns cutting into her skin. She moved against him, trying to get free, but he was damn good at typing knots, and all she could manage was to hurt herself more. Whimpering slightly, she didn't reply.

He lifted her with ease and walked across the room with her, pushing a button that lit a small lamp by the stairs. The lamp lit the room gently, almost pleasantly had it not been for the situation, and Emily gulped back tears when she was placed face down on a large table. She felt like sobbing because the confirmation was right in front of her. The table was bloodstained and grubby, and she could smell a faint tang of spilled blood. She knew that smell; she had sensed it many times before.

She didn't struggle as he untied her, and she said nothing when he turned her over and looked her up and down. She knew that he had locked the door to the basement. She had no way of escaping, and she knew that to try would inevitably harm her more.

And then his hands were on her arms. She shuddered to herself, crushing her lips together to stop the tears. Why was this happening?! He surprised her by pulling her to her feet, off the table, and making her stand right in front of him. He stared at her for a few seconds, and then he pulled her jacket from her shoulders, yanking it from her frame roughly, ignoring the blood dripping from her wrists onto the floor; the ropes had done their primary job, and she was hurting already. He could smell the blood, and he relished it.

When her jacket was on the floor, he unbuttoned her pants and pulled her shirt open, surveying the bruising on her face and neck- the remnants of his difficult abduction the night before. She had fought back, and he had gotten more violent with her when she did. She was quieter now, and he knew that she was already learning as the others had not.

The cold air in the basement made her skin tingle, and she felt naked in front of him. He left her in her underwear and removed her socks. When he was finished and Emily was sobbing quietly, he lifted her again and brought her back to the table. She struggled more against him this time, but his weight beat her weariness, and he managed to secure her hands and feet to the table- just as he had done the other girls.

And then he turned his back on her and walked across the room, reaching for various items she couldn't truly see, and when he got back, she knew what he was going to do. He would deprive her of her sight and her hearing, as well as securing her to the table. She would have no way of knowing how much time passed. He taped her mouth shut and fixed a long strip of black material around her head, crossing it over her eyes and forcing blind darkness onto her. And then he pulled a heavy, homemade pair of earmuffs over her head, entirely blocking out any noise she might managed to make, or any noise that might resonate into the room. She would have no way of knowing what was going on.

And he knew that that could destroy a person's resolve; which was exactly what he wanted.

And then he was gone. Emily didn't know it, but he took her clothes with him. He turned out the light and he climbed the stairs, opened the door and closed it again, and wandered down the hall to his study, where he laid out the clothes and searched them as he did with all of the other girls' items. He found a wallet and an FBI ID in the left hand pocket of the jacket.

He could definitely have fun with her; and he would extend the suffering to her team also. They would see how awfully she was suffering. He knew all about the BAU. It was plain dumb luck that he had found one of them. He had found one of them at last.

***

Though forgotten, the file on Hotch's desk was paramount to Emily's disappearance. By luck, the local police had contacted the BAU for a consult, and Hotch had decided just that morning to take the case. It was now 12pm and he had disregarded work in order to find the woman he loved more than anything else in the world.

The file indicated that a sexual predator was torturing and raping women in their 30s in the small town of Matoaca, Virginia, just miles away from Quantico. The predator was drastically disturbed, beating and whipping his victims, cutting and pummelling them, playing mind games with them and keeping them in the worst conditions possible for a period of ten days.

And when those ten days were up, he killed them at the pinnacle of a violent rape. Their bodies would turn up, bruised, bloody, destroyed, in public places just a few hours later.

And then the cycle would start again.

And Emily was the beginning of the new cycle.

***

Emily had no idea how time was passing or when he would return. Surely she had been here for over an hour? Two? She could feel the cold on her skin, but that was all she could feel. She could hear nothing, and she could see nothing. She couldn't move. Terror was threatening her at every second and she wanted to cry, to yell, to scream for help, to scrub her skin and make herself clean, to prevent him from getting closer to her. She could feel a horrible panic welling in her chest, and then suddenly she felt something... else.

There was something moving across her leg. She was positive that it was him, and she wished it wasn't. There was something infinitesimally creepy about it, and she felt instantly fearful and apprehensive. _What was he going to do to her?_

The blindfold was removed, and her hands and feet were freed. He took the earmuffs off, but he left the tape across her mouth, pulling her to her feet roughly. The blood was congealing on her wrists and ankles, but he knew from looking at her that the sensory deprivation had gotten to her already. She had only been enclosed for twenty minutes; to her it had felt like hours, and she was so tired from crying and yelling and dehydration that she could barely think straight.

So when he pulled her to her feet, she groaned and swayed on her feet. He had given her Rohypnol and had offered her no water in over 14 hours. She was desperately thirsty, but he was not quite ready to aid her yet. He grabbed her arms roughly and pulled her across the wide basement to a far corner she hadn't seen before. The glow of the lamp barely stretched this far. He lifted her arms above her head and attached them to something she couldn't see. But she could feel it well enough, and she knew that she was shackled to a chain hanging from the ceiling. She moaned desperately and pulled her body against the chain, trying to free herself.

Seeing her move turned him on; but he was rigid about his method. He would not take all of her, not until she was completely and utterly devastated, ruined and destroyed. Because that's what she deserved, and nothing more. Walking beyond her to the wall, he pulled the strap from the pin and menacingly circled around her before stepping close to her and grabbing her hair, pulling her head sharply.

"Yell for me," he said meanly, and pulled the duct tape from her mouth crudely, burning her skin and cutting her lips. She trembled in front of him despite her efforts to react otherwise. There are simply some things a person cannot compartmentalise. And this was her limit, she quickly discovered.

When the strap hit her back, Emily hissed loudly but didn't yell.

The second time he hit her, she felt the harshness escalating, but still she didn't yell.

The third time he hit her, she cried out, feeling the shudder of the whip against her skin. The drip of blood that fell from an open cut on her skin lit her back in flames. She closed her eyes tightly as soon as she cried out, determined that the next time, she would be silent.

She failed, and failed miserably. The next time, he exerted true force and she felt a searing, burning, hissing pain light up across her pale skin. She felt the skin tear and she felt the friction burn against her. And she heard the scream she wasn't able to hold back.

The fifth hit was crucifying, a blow across her shoulders that winded her, pushing all the breath out of her lungs and making her cough violently, angrily, trying to get air back into her lungs.

And then it was over and she was released. She fell to the floor and collapsed against the cold stone of the ground. There was no wood here, for reasons she couldn't quite establish.

He dragged her to her feet, refusing to let up, and barked orders at her to make her stand upright. The tears were falling down her cheeks without stopping, and she was too damn exhausted to care. So things only got worse when he pulled the straps of her bra down her arms and snapped it open at the back. She lifted her arms immediately to cover herself, and he ignored the movement. He would have time to overpower her again later. He left her standing there in the freezing cold and walked to the corner, pulling a hanger from an old battered wardrobe (which she also had not seen). On the hanger was a pretty summer dress. And for some reason, that upset her more than anything else. It was almost too innocent, too polite, too bright for such a moment, and it confused her in her already lost state.

He threw it at her and her reflexes came to life. One hand reached out and grabbed it.

"Put it on," he growled. "Then you can eat."

She was fast about it, and she yanked it over her head quickly. It hurt to move her arms and it hurt to stretch at all, but she did it nonetheless. The dress scratched against the cuts in her back and she knew that it would be bloody and dirty before long.

He beckoned her from that side of the room, leading her closer to the light. She had no choice but to oblige, and as she stepped closer, she saw the bowl of water in front of him on the table, next to a small plate with a slice of brown bread on it.

She wanted to eat so badly, her stomach was knotted and felt useless right now, but she knew that any sustenance was good and valid. Her stomach flipped into distaste when he lowered the plate and bowl to the ground and raised an eyebrow at her.

"On your knees," he muttered.

And she had no choice but to oblige, the humiliating shame forcing more tears from her burning eyes.

The only thing she could think of, the only thing she could hang onto, was the fact that somewhere out there she knew Aaron was mounting the cavalry to find her. He had once phoned the Vatican to help her. She knew that he would come. She just knew it.


	4. Chapter Three Lost

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything Criminal Minds related. Characters are merely borrowed and will be put back later. ;)**

**A/N: HUGS for everyone who lasted through that last chapter! I am so terribly sorry! Stick with me though. It might be dark, but it's not permanently that way. The team are very capable people, I swear it.**

**Suffer and Save**

**Chapter Three- Lost**

"_I am lost without you; I cannot live at all  
my whole world surrounds you; I stumble then I crawl"_

_Puddle of Mudd_

It was 3.30. No sign of Emily. The team had spent the day calling people she knew, pulling the sim card from the phone and having Garcia try to get any data from it that she could. But it made no difference. Emily had simply vanished. Nobody at all had heard from.

As the team hung around the bullpen anxiously, waiting for a phone to ring, they reluctantly had to continue with their other work. Morgan took two consultation calls and Rossi did some paperwork, but they were at the very best, unfocused, and at the worst, half hysterical with worry. Emily was not the type to just go missing.

Hotch had gotten very upset at about 2.30 and JJ had taken him for a walk, culminating in him crying on her shoulder and begging forgiveness for leaving Emily behind. JJ wasn't about to share the story with the rest of the team, but Hotch was for all intents and purposes, entirely lost. Nonetheless he stayed with them, made suggestions, kept moving and working. There were moments when he flopped into a chair and buried his head in his hands. And there had been a bad five minutes when he had thrown an empty cup across the bullpen, narrowly missing Reid. Morgan had caught the cup and said nothing more of it.

The team weren't sure whether Hotch was worse in the quiet stages or whether it was worse when he offered ideas and insights. When JJ considered that if Henry or Will were in trouble, she would have been likely been hospitalised for stress, she knew that him being so level on the one hand was a concern. But the fact was that they were all having those moments. Dave had, at one point, left for twenty minutes, returning only when he felt able to maintain a level head instead of doing what he truly wanted to do; swear and curse and beat his fists against the walls in consternation.

But it was Garcia who was working hardest to find Emily, and so Garcia was often the one they spoke with at their low points. Hotch spent a great deal of time in her office, reassured by her working manner, the calls she was making, the people she spoke to with efficiency and capability; the fact that she was compartmentalising as well as Emily ever had.

At about 3.40, she had a breakthrough. She had done what Spencer had asked and she was working on the shoddy CCTV work at Emily's building. And she had finally found what she was looking for. She had of course searched before, but the newer cameras gave no decent angle and showed nothing. And then she had had been talking to Hotch, calming him down, when he mentioned that there was a camera down the hall with a different angle. Unsure of whether he was right, Penelope took him through each of the angles he had. He shook his head at her. There was definitely another camera. He sheepishly shrugged and noted that he had thought, on more than occasion, that he and Emily often gave the security guys an eyeful when they kissed outside her apartment.

On a normal day, Garcia would have trilled happily at such an admission. Today, she simply nodded and considered the information she had.

"Okay. I think I know what might be going on. Some buildings, when they replace their old systems, the actual old cameras are never disconnected. They keep filming, and the files are stored on a separate older system. Disconnecting them can take a lot of hassle, so I guess that's what Emily's building is like. If I can tap into the older files..."

Hotch was right there with her. "Then you might see something else," he said. And then he watched as Garcia tapped at keys and made wild gestures at the screen. "Yes! I've got it!" she cried aloud, and Morgan, who had been near her office door, beckoned the rest of the team to see what she had found.

By 3.50, they had each seen the tape of Emily's beating and kidnapping at least three times. And it was horrific. Emily herself had not known it, but her nose had bled, her face was bruised and bloody, her fingers were cut and there was an angry cut on her lower back, though from what they were unsure, the fight had evidently started in the apartment, of which they had no view.

They had seen the hulking sculpture of her captor approach the door just minutes after Hotch left Emily in the hall, where she had stood for a minute by herself, just smiling lightly. When she walked into the apartment, it was only seconds before he arrived, and when she watched the tape, Garcia squeaked. It was the sort of thing you saw on a film. A time when you wanted to cry out to the good guy that the villain was approaching fast, in an attempt to save them.

But this was real life, there was no pause button. No saving grace. Emily had been kidnapped, and there was no way they could stop that process. Garcia had to be soothed and calmed before she could return to her computers, and Rossi decided to pull Reid back to the apartment to have a look around. He knew that the CSI people had not been told to give the place a total dust down and there were things he and Reid might be able to find. On the drive over, he had Reid call the CSI office to see had they any results on the glass. Nothing. It was just a relic of the fight in the apartment and nothing more.

When they arrived, they walked through what had happened and while Rossi surveyed the apartment to sum up what had happened in there, Reid took note of any older cameras which might be of use to Garcia. She could only access them one at a time because they weren't on a grid system, and she had only found the one Hotch talked about because he knew exactly where it was and what angle it was at. Anything Reid found might be useful.

Back at the BAU, Hotch was sitting on a seat in the bullpen, when the phone on Reid's desk rang. He was just about to pick it up when JJ got there first and announced herself to the person on the other end of the line.

"Jareau."

"Agent Jareau, this is Bill Daly here, the Police Chief down in Matoaca? I was hoping that you maybe had a chance to look at the file I faxed over this morning."

"Uhh.. Yeah, Agent Hotchner checked it out. Listen, Bill, we've had something of an emergency here. WE were planning on having the team get down there asap, but we're delayed. We think you've got a serial, and we will get there..."

"There's something more important than the 20 women that have gone missing here over the last two years?"

That shut JJ up, because she knew the man on the other end of the phone was right.

"One of my team members has been kidnapped," she said sharply nonetheless.

And then she had a proper think about it, while Bill Daly chewed his lip anxiously at the end of the line.

"Hang on," JJ said quietly. "Hang on. Bill, tell me about those victims again."

"You read the file. They're all women in their thirties. Abducted from their homes. They go missing for ten days and then they show up in the worst ways. Why?"

"Can I call you back?"

Bill Daly sighed. "Sure, Agent Jareau. I'll be here."

She hung up the phone, and looked directly at Hotch. "The file from Matoaca that I gave you this morning. Where is it?"

"In my office, why?" he said curiously.

"I just need to get rid of the idea from my head..."

She trailed off and half ran to Hotch's office, desperately hopeful that she was wrong and that this would have nothing to do with Emily. She pulled open the file on the table and saw the photos she had also seen that morning. They were violent, oppressive, dark and disgusting. She closed her eyes and scanned the details again. Strong, beautiful women in their 30s abducted from their homes at night. CCTV imaging at one woman's house was on file.

JJ walked as calmly as she could to Garcia's office. "Garcia. There's a file here I need you to check." She showed Penelope the file number in the archive, and it was in front of her on the screen in a few seconds. A video of a man pulling a woman down the street and to a van parked next to the pavement. A tall, hulking man with dark hair.

"Jayjie, that looks just like the guy from..."

"Yeah," JJ said softly. "I know."

She walked into the bullpen and dropped the file in front of Hotch. "He's got her," she choked out. Hotch wasn't sure what she meant. "I don't understand," he said, "who has her?"

"That unsub, the unsub we were going to find today! Him! The guy in the file!" she said, as the tears spilled onto her cheeks. "Hotch...." she whispered softly, unsure of what else she could say or do. Garcia arrived behind her with two printouts; one of the man at Emily's apartment, and one of the man at the house of a victim they knew nothing about.

"I ran digital perspective software. It's the same guy, I'm pretty sure of it. Same height, same estimated weight, same shoes...."

Hotch looked at the file on the desk. He blinked once or twice.

It was one of the worst files he had laid eyes on in quite some time. The man torturing the women was a monster and nothing more. "I need Reid. For mapping. And I need Dave back here, for the profile. Get them, Morgan, would you?" he said, as Morgan arrived, looking quite confused at the order since the two mentioned men were not even in the building. While he made the call to Rossi and Reid, Garcia explained what was happening to them on the line.

Rossi and Reid half ran from Emily's apartment to the car, and while they were driving and hearing the full story from JJ and Garcia, Hotch gave Morgan the order that would take them to Matoaca. "Get cars together. I don't want this to go on for any longer than it has to."

He picked up the phone and called Bill Daly personally, telling the officer that the BAU would be in Matoaca within about two hours. Daly was thankful, but Hotch was baleful and distant on the phone. Emily was out there, somewhere, stuck with this sick son of a bitch who had disgusted Hotch from the first moment he read the file.

Within twenty minutes, they were in cars. Hotch sat in the passenger seat while Morgan drove, JJ in the back. In the other car, Rossi drove, accompanied by Reid and Garcia, who had three separate laptops with her. There was no way she was staying behind, she had told Hotch. She would bring enough equipment to make sure she could work perfectly. Hotch allowed her to come, knowing in his heart that without her, the team would fall apart. She was the glue holding them together at right that moment. They all needed her.

When they were on the road, they traded discussion between the two cars on an open line.

"So how did we work this out?" asked a still confused Derek.

"This unsub has abducted women the same type as Emily," JJ said, "And he's very active. Reid's working on a geographical profile and he's mentioned that it looks like the unsub will trail Virginia to find women, he stays completely outside of wherever he's from, but the bodies all show up there- in Matoaca," she finished.

"But isn't that place tiny?" Rossi inquired.

"Population 2000 or so," Reid muttered under his breath, "It's a small town, yeah, but it's not the first unsub to come from a town just like it. Think about some of our most recent cases- some of them have been very remotely placed. What's weird is that he dumps them in Matoaca, but abducts them from other areas. He clearly likes to spend time with them, to say he crosses jurisdictional boundaries. It means that the connection isn't made until they show up... in Matoaca."

Reid had not been able to say that Emily might show up dead in the small town they were nearing. He just couldn't do it. No matter how clinical he liked to be, there were limits to what he could say and do. He had a feeling that Hotch was already barely holding on, and he didn't want to exacerbate that.

"We're almost here. Okay... I know this is going to be hard," Hotch said, "But we have to find her. She's my priority, and she always will be. I love her. I'm not going to let anything in the world hurt her, so we have to work hard to find her as soon as possible. I need you all with me," he said quietly. Across from him, Morgan glanced sideways at his boss and sighed internally.

This was going to be the worst case they had ever seen.

When they stepped from the cars, Garcia got Morgan to help with her laptops, while Hotch and JJ walked forward to meet Bill Daly. Shaking his hand firmly and introducing himself, Hotch then waved to the rest of the team and gave a short introduction. "We want to get started as soon as possible," he finished, and Bill immediately led them inside to a small corner of the office he had cleared for them. A large table and notice board stood waiting for them, and Reid immediately laid out his map and continued drawing from the file to make it the best he could. Garcia set up her babies nearby and continued to trawl for images of Emily and their unsub on the move, but she was coming up quite empty handed.

And then she hit the jackpot. "He took her out the back of the building!" she yelled suddenly, and the entire BAU crowded around to watch and see. "Hotch, he must have passed right by you...."

"I didn't see anyone on the stairs. Could he have taken the elevator?" he asked quietly.

"It would make sense for him to use the elevator," Reid noted, "He's not exactly forgettable, is he? So if he was there at the same time as you, he might even have followed you in off the street and kept watch for a few minutes. Garcia, check the outside cameras and the new ones near the elevators, you might find something."

It was sickening for Aaron to consider that if he had simply stayed with her for a few seconds more, everything would have been alright.

And then Garcia had other pictures in front of her. After hearing Reid out and doing what he suggested, she was able to track the attacked through the building. Into the elevator on the ground floor, up the three stories, out of the elevator just as Hotch headed down the stairs opposite. He had been so close to arriving at the wrong time. Hotch and Emily had been supremely unlucky.

And when he saw the tape, Aaron sat down hard on a nearby seat.

So close.

_If only._


	5. Chapter Four Matoaca

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything Criminal Minds related. Characters are merely borrowed and will be put back later. ;)**

**A/N: A warning. The next chapter is dark, and it's about Emily. Sowwy. :(**

**Suffer and Save**

**Chapter Four- Matoaca**

"_I'm miles from where you are, I lay down on the cold ground  
I, I pray that something picks me up and sets me down in your warm arms."_

_Snow Patrol_

The day raged on, and it wasn't getting any better. It was now past 8pm, and Emily had been missing almost 24 hours. They had no way of knowing where she was and they were no closer to finding her either.

And in the darkness they faced, was Bill Daly. The team were more than able to sympathise and to empathise with him; his town was under attack just as surely as the rest of Virginia. But at the end of the day, the woman in trouble was one of their own agents. They had come to love Emily as a sister and a friend. Not a single one of them wanted to let her out there to suffer and die like trash- but they weren't truthfully focused enough to make a profile work at right that moment.

Rossi knew that they were struggling. In their efforts to find Emily, they had forgotten that their jobs best equipped them for this purpose, and they had failed to work as they usually did, with precision and care. "We need to work a profile," he said to Morgan, who nodded and immediately pulled the files on the Matoaca unsub apart, taking out photographs and posting them on the board with external conviction- despite the fact that inside, he was picturing Emily in these photos.

Hotch glanced at the board and swallowed harshly. "The first thing we talk about is victimology," JJ prompted, "You know this file best Hotch."

She was, of course, correct. He nodded and retained a sense of objectivity. That was the only thing that would help. And in the background, Garcia was still searching cameras, a reassurance to him that there was always someone looking for Emily.

"He targets women in their 30s, but he has no specific type. There are blondes, there are brunettes, there are redheads. Eye colours are all different and they're all different heights. The women are strong and well capable- the bodies recovered showed skin and dried blood under the nails. Defensive wounds. But there are so DNA results," he said, feeling slightly more at home as he discussed it without thinking about Emily.

"He's a big guy," Reid added, "We've seen him on cameras. He doesn't care about being seen, but his face is too blurry in any of the shots we have to make any kind of sketch of him. We know that he's tall- about 6'2" according to Garcia, and we know that he's intimidating. He's not scared to fight, and he is more than willing to interrupt these women at home. So we don't think this is opportunistic. He seems to know where they will be and he follows them."

"But at the same time, Emily would have noticed if someone was following her. She was pretty vigilant," Rossi noted, "so it's possible that he only follows them briefly before he abducts them. It fits the profile of a man who is temperamental and tempestuous; he has anger issues."

"We've seen on the CCTV footage at Emily's apartment that when he left with her, she was sedated. We're thinking that it might be some form of Rohypnol, which is interesting. He was willing to fight her, but he didn't administer the drug when things got out of hand. It was almost as though he needed to fight her somewhat- until eventually his need for control takes over," Reid stated matter-of-factly.

Morgan took over from there, looking at the notice board and leafing through some reports. "The bodies recovered were dead only a few hours, and blood hadn't yet fully congealed. Autopsy results indicated that death was by strangulation, which is a psychosexual characteristic."

"And on top of that, the reports also stated that some of the bruising was over nine days old, meaning that he keeps them for at least that long," Hotch said.

"But he's devolving," Rossi continued, glad that finally the team was working as a team. "Of the last four women abducted, there was a pattern of fourteen days between deaths. We think he spends about ten days with them, meaning there was a four day cooling off period. The last cooling off period was just a day, which was when he took Emily."

"Hold on, what does all of this mean?" Daly asked, confused.

"It means that this is one mean son of a bitch, and he won't stop until we stop him," Morgan intoned.

"Is he from here? Or is he just dumping bodies on my doorstep?" Daly pressed.

"He's a local," Hotch said assuredly. "There's no doubt about that. He travels to abduct women because he's smart. Crossing jurisdictional lines means that the abductions are never reported to you, even though you're the end of the line here in Matoaca. There've been 19 murders, and each time the women have been taken from inside Virginia, a few hours' drive from here at most, but dumped here because he doesn't care once they're dead. These women mean nothing to him," he finished, his lip twisting in disgust.

"So who are we looking for?" asked an ever growing impatient Daly.

"You're looking for a tall Caucasian with a criminal record for attempted rape, battery, and it will be a big rap sheet. He's a psychopathic sexual sadist and we're on a time limit. We all have a personal interest in this case, so we're going to work as long and as hard as we have to in order to get our girl back."

Bill Daly sat down, hard, on a cold plastic seat. "We'll search records for this area and see what we find," he said, "surely there can't be too many rap sheets like that."

"You'd be surprised," Hotch said drily. "And either way, Garcia can check that faster than your people can. She can bypass a lot of red tape that you can't. We need you to go knocking on doors, asking questions, and trying to find this guy. And we need you and your people, with JJ, to talk to as many of the family members of the murdered girls as you can. Something must connect them, and we need to find out what that is."

The team broke up and the police officers went about their jobs, now in no doubt as to who was calling the shots. There was a renewed confidence in the BAU team, and even as they got to work it seemed that they would be able to catch this guy before he caused more harm.

Garcia found nothing in the system that matched the description and purported rap sheet of the man she was looking for. Or rather, she did- but there were over 50 results, which was too many. On top of that, she lost track of the unsub after he took Emily from the building. She had not been able to locate any white van in the CCTV vicinity- but she knew that it likely was there. The cameras, in a spout of bad luck, just didn't see it.

And so they were back at square one. They had a basic profile, but nothing that would tell them where Emily was. By 11pm, they were all exhausted, but nobody wanted to stop working. They looked at photographs until they were bleary eyed and restless. None of them had eaten in hours, and even a delivery of pizza wasn't as pleasant as it should have been. There was an excess of slices because they were missing a member, and the pizza seemed to go cold too quickly.

By 12am, Garcia, still trawling photos and police reports, was falling asleep as her laptop. Reid had finished the geographical profile and noted that Emily's home was in fact neither the closest nor the farthest from Matoaca, which was an inconclusive finding. It meant that the killer was devolving, but not very quickly. He would spend days with Emily.

And Reid, for one, was sure that those days would be the worst days of her life. He had read the reports and seen the pictures. Whippings, beatings, cuts, bruises... it was one of the most violent cases he had worked in quite some time, and the fact that he was so far from an answer, despite his best efforts, was killing him.

For his part, Hotch was devastated. The level of work they were getting don had lessened because there were limits to how late you could knock on people's doors, and there were limits to how late you could make horrible phone calls to family members about their dead wives and sisters. There were limits, much though he hated it, that he had to stick by.

And all the while, Emily was suffering. He knew that. It didn't help that he was trying his hardest to find her. She was still out there somewhere. On her own. Hurt. He was trying to shake it off, but he had a deep feeling of unease in his chest. He loved her. He loved her and he was without her, because he had walked past her attacker, been within just a second of everything going differently.

One second. That was all it took.

And he would be damned if he ever missed something so vital again.

"I think we need a break," JJ said softly at about 12.30. "There's no way we're being useful just sitting here. A few hours sleep won't do any harm..."

She was the first one to point it out, and the others agreed with her. A few hours sleep would put them on a good path early in the morning so they could continue their search. At this hour, they weren't going to get anything decent done anyway, and so, guiltily, reluctantly, they left the station for their hotel. They checked in quickly and went to their rooms, sitting around for very little time, barely making conversation with each other. JJ didn't talk to Garcia, and Garcia went to sleep quickly. Morgan and Reid didn't talk about anything that might trigger an emotional response in either of them, and Dave- in a private room because he knew Hotch needed alone time- sat with the file and looked and looked and looked at what he might be missing. He fell asleep at 2am.

Aaron though, was still awake at 4am. Thinking to himself. Sitting quietly on the cold floor. Doing nothing other than imagining what she might be going through at right that moment. He looked at the file once, twice, three times. And he saw very little that would help him. He knew all about this man already, but finding him was a virtual impossibility. He could only hope that tomorrow, their enquiries would work out better and that they would find something more. So far, all they had were dead ends.

He settled into his duvet, but couldn't sleep properly. He was restless, uncomfortable, unsure of himself in murky waters. All he wanted was Emily, tucked safely beside him, giving out to him for staying up late. He would never really forgive himself for what had happened.

And when dawn came, he finally slept. It was a cold sleep, futile and sullen. He achieved nothing with it, his brain still working overtime as he questioned every move he had made, every second he had spent with her, in his head. What if he never saw her again?

He got back up at 6.30am and went to get breakfast before going back to the station- he was the first one there- and starting at the beginning. They must have missed something. Without Garcia, he had only the paperwork in front of him to work with. But that was all he needed, and by 8am, when the other members of the team arrived with the rest of the police force, he had a better profile to work with, and he felt more prepared.

The officers again went about their jobs and business, making calls, going to homes, talking to people on the street. Descriptions ran across the town and there was a tip line set up for calls. It received some local attention because of JJ, but their unsub seemed like a ghost. He was memorable, but nobody appeared to have seen him. It wasn't the first time the team had worked with a hermit unsub; but it was always a tough case when that happened. It gave them less leads and a longer case, which was never a good thing.

"So tell us more about this guy, " Morgan prodded at Hotch over breakfast.

"We know profiling backwards. This is a small town, so the better a description we can give, the more likely it is that we'll find someone who knows this guy. His methods tell us that his background was violent. He deplores women, so it's arguable that his father abused his mother and his other couldn't protect her son during that time. We've seen that before."

"Sure," Morgan said, "Absolutely."

"He seems to have a sense of entitlement," Hotch continued, " Almost as though he feels that these women are owed to him, that they are for him and him alone. That tells us he needs consistent control, but his anger issues point out that eventually his temper will win out and he'll... kill her."

It was the first time anyone had mentioned the possibility. Morgan froze with a coffee cup half to his mouth and stared at Hotch. "No way," he said. "We'll find her Hotch. I swear, we will."

Hotch nodded, but said nothing.

They all knew that with every passing hour, the chances of that lessened. They had, he figured, at most, about another day before Emily's life would be destroyed forever.


	6. Chapter Five Not Dark Yet

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything Criminal Minds related. Characters are merely borrowed and will be put back later. ;)**

**Suffer and Save**

**Chapter Five- Not Dark Yet**

"_I've been down on the bottom of a world full of lies  
I ain't looking for nothing in anyone's eyes  
Sometimes my burden seems more than I can bear  
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there.."_

_Bob Dylan_

She had no idea how long she had been there. It was dark, she could see nothing, her hands and feet were bound again, she couldn't move, and all she could smell was the faint coppery foulness of blood.

She thought that she might have slept for a few hours- but she wasn't sure, and she felt disorientated and dizzy- all of which was compounded by the fact that her blocked ears meant she couldn't have heard a pin drop.

Nausea was spreading through her stomach every few minutes, and she still felt exhausted and groggy. But she was going to hold on; she had promised that more than anything. No matter what other sick plans he had for her, there was no way she would give in to him.

It wasn't the first time she had decided that, and she was forced into admitting that she was already giving into him gradually. She had learned quickly not to fight back; she had learned faster still not to talk or yell, not to scream or even mutter. She was powerless to stop him- at least until some opportunity presented itself, and she had a funny feeling that an opportunity like that didn't come along very often with this creep.

She had tried to profile him, of course. But she had barely seen him. There had been the whipping, which was excruciating without a doubt, and he had smiled his way through it with delight. Sadistic bastard. There had been the humiliation of having to remove her clothes- but then those same garments had been replaced with a summer dress. She couldn't for the life of her piece that together. Was she a proxy? A stand in for someone else? It was a new dress, but she knew there had been other women here before. Did he buy a new dress each time? What happened to the old ones? Did he use the same dress for the other girls? How many of them had there been? What was the purpose of making her eat from the floor, like a dog?

She had been through those questions time and time and time again in her waking minutes.

And each horrible one of those minutes, she was fearful- terrified that he would return, and terrified that he wouldn't. What if she died down here? She had no idea where she was or how long he would keep her for. No idea when blind rage would take over and he would end her life. He barely spoke to her, gave nothing away; she was utterly lost in a well of hopelessness. There was no way she could solve this puzzle alone.

And she hoped, hoped to the heavens that Aaron was looking for her. She hoped that the BAU would piece this together and help her out. Otherwise she was going to die down here. She knew that for sure. People had died in this room before; she could smell it- just like she had smelled it in other houses, other basements, other rooms.

The silence and the parading mockery of her surroundings were getting to her. She lashed out against the ropes around her wrists and ankles, realising that she was still cold, and beat her body against the table, trying to scream as loud as she could through the duct tape that kept her mouth firmly closed. She became more disillusioned upon realising that though she could feel the soreness when she thumped herself against the hard wood, she could not hear it at all.

It was devastating how alone she felt. There could have been five other people in the room that she couldn't see or feel or hear or know of. And that freaked her out even more as the panic threatened to overwhelm.

And then hands were on her, pulling the blindfold down, glaring into her eyes. It made no difference to her, she couldn't breathe and needed space to move, to cry, to beat her fists against a wall and roar in horror. That choice and liberty had been taken away from her and she needed it more than she ever had before. She could compartmentalise like nobody's business on a normal day.

But this was most definitely not a normal day. This was hell on a Sunday and she needed out.

And then suddenly, she was out. Gasping for breath and scrabbling at the duct tape across her mouth, she screamed and clamoured for freedom, leaping from the table, feeling the burning pains in her shins when her cold feet hit the freezing floor. She hissed at the pain and tried to assuage it by bending her legs to get the blood circulating again; but it made no difference.

She would be punished, _hard_, for creating such a scene, making so much noise, causing so much trouble.

And before she knew it, she was on the floor, her hands crushing against the wood while she shook her head sharply and tried to regain some sense of balance. She turned to face him almost immediately, but was met with a winding sensation when his boot thumped into her stomach and chest. Her sense of balance lost again, Emily lurched to the side and retched unwittingly, vomiting on the wooden floor- and she still felt nauseous and shivery when she was done.

That wasn't the end either. A hand reached into her hair and yanked her neck back, pulling a muscle and causing her to yell out at the sudden pain. She had never been in a fist fight before. It always looked so stylized and gracious in a movie. In her line of work, she just never got into brawls. There was always backup, there was always protection, and she was always fit and strong enough to hold down most unsubs anyway.

This guy was another kettle of fish altogether. When his hand collided with her face, the sting of the previously cracked bone sprang to life again and made her scream aloud. She was angry and upset, and she tried to move toward him, arms outstretched to scratch and bite and tear at him. It made no difference; how did a man come to be this strong?! Emily was by no means a weak woman, but he viewed her as a plaything; it was only too easy for him to hold her off; only too easy for him to hurt her.

And he did. Each time she tried to lash out at him, he hit her harder. The felt the crucifying lack of mercy as the blows rained down. Her head ached, her body throbbed, and she could feel her lungs struggling for air. When he kicked her again, she was positive that he had broken a rib, and when she next tried to get away from him, he terrified her with an angry outburst that shook her to her core.

She lurched across the ground to gain some space, some air, some small spate of freedom, but in barely a second, he was on her, his hand fixed around her neck, his eyes lighting up with determination and fire. He was going to kill her. His fingers pushed against her windpipe and she couldn't struggle away from him no matter how hard she tried.

So she kicked out with her leg and managed, somehow, thankfully, to kick him directly in the groin. He went down quickly to the floor and gasped. Emily ran. She ran up the stairs and reached the door, praying that it would open if she threw herself at it hard enough; but she failed. The door simply would not budge, and even as she panicked ad thumped her hands against it until they were red and raw, her fingers blistering and sore, she knew that she was not going to get out.

And then hands were on her again, around her waist, pushing her against the door roughly. She felt his hand trail across her thigh and then onto her stomach, his body pushing against her back. The nausea came back quickly; was this it? Would this be the moment she had dreaded for days?

No. He had a method, a way of working that he wasn't about to relinquish, no matter how much he wanted to. This woman was a fighter; that much was obvious. She would make a wonderful present at the end of the line, when she had no more fight in her and he tore her life away with ease. He would stick to his methods.

This was why Emily found herself falling down the stairs as he pushed her. Her legs clattered against the rickety banisters and her cold body bruised and bled when she fell against the concrete steps. She felt her head clatter against one of the steps, and then she felt the stream of blood against her face as she spun once more onto the ground of the basement.

Unable to move, she lay there, whimpering quietly, unsure what more of a fight she could offer.

Almost gently, he came back down the stairs and lifted her to her feet. When she fell down again, he pulled her up harder, and the third time she fell, he forcefully yanked her upwards and roared at her to stand.

"No," she whimpered, her knees shaking even as she lay helpless on the floor.

"Get UP!" he roared at her, kicking her savagely.

"I can't," she said sadly, and realised it was true. There was no way she could get to her feet. They simply would not support her anymore.

"GET UP!" he screeched, anger flooding through his system. But Emily didn't move. Her eyes were closed as she faced a form of sleep, and she felt, more than saw, him fiddle with something metal before there was a long hiss of fabrics.

And then the belt buckle screamed against the wounds on her back, magnifying the remaining pain there tenfold. Emily screeched in agony and writhed on the floor to get away. When he hit her again, the heavy steel buckle crashed into her knee and drew blood. She gritted her teeth and struggled again to get away, managing to pull herself to her feet where she swayed sickeningly on the spot like a doll.

And then he prodded her, pushed her and poked her toward the table, ignoring the blood still seeping from the cut on her head, the flesh wound on her knee going uncared for, the sheen of sweat on her forehead telling him that she was too cold and becoming ill quickly.

She would last him about another two days, at most. And then he would take everything she could offer him, before strangling her with his bare hands.

And then he would go outside and take the dress from her and burn it. Its purpose would pass. He would use another of the dresses from the upstairs room for the next girl.

He would drive Emily into the middle of Matoaca and dump her, with that shiny FBI Identification card, so that the whole world would know that he alone could beat the BAU.

He didn't care that the ropes on her wrists and ankles chafed against her skin and burned her. He didn't care that she had a fever and was ill. He had seen it before. It made no difference. They could all only give so much. And even though this one was a fighter, he was certain that he could subdue her. As he stomped up the stairs and left Emily tied to the table, he conceded that she was, without a doubt, the only woman to fight him so hard.

The only one of those bitches who had ever made him fall to the floor in pain. He pulled open the door and locked it behind him, wandering along the corridor and turning off the light at the end, before climbing the stairs to the room on the top floor, where he watched the daily news and saw that the FBI had arrived into town. Perhaps he could leave them a message?

Or perhaps he could do better than that... and show them what their girl was suffering.

Turning to the screen in the corner of the room, he stopped the recording and rewound it to the beginning. There was no need to edit it. He wanted them to see it- all of it. He wanted them to see his humiliation too; because then they would understand, when the end came, why he had been so vicious with her. She would pay for that embarrassment.

Smiling to himself, he quickly copied the tape and went downstairs to find an envelope. It would be with them by morning- and finally, finally, he would ruin the BAU. There are some things the human mind cannot take; he knew that this would destroy them. Just as they had destroyed him all those years before.


	7. Chapter Six Development

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything Criminal Minds related. Characters are merely borrowed and will be put back later. ;)**

**Suffer and Save**

**Chapter Six- Development**

"_Just as despair can come to one another only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings."_

_Elie Wiesel_

A whole day had passed with no development. Emily had disappeared on Tuesday night. Wednesday had been a search for her and a move to Matoaca. Thursday had barely begun, and Hotch felt that they were getting nowhere fast. The man they were looking for was primarily a dead end. There was simply no way of ascertaining his record because Garcia was unable to trace his vehicle and had also been unable to identify any identification or matches in a search for the man she could see on the cameras.

Dead end was one way of putting it, and the difficulty in finding the unsub was getting on everyone's nerves. By 12pm, the tip line had taken some responses, but in truth nothing decent had come through. Hotch sat with Rossi and walked the room with JJ more than once to talk about the house calls she was making. The families of the original victims had at the very least all been contacted for more information, but there was nothing solid or concrete enough to tie the women together.

Hotch was feeling better. His awful night had literally spent him of any grief he had, and though he knew it would return, he was more focused on his job than he had been the previous day. He had a major difficulty with one aspect of their current investigation though; because she was missing but presumed alive, the BAU also had to profile Emily in order to attempt to tie her to the other women who had been abducted. And that stung them all. The moratorium on profiling other members of the team was reluctantly abolished as Reid searched the system with Garcia and dug through Emily's life.

There were some surprising things about Emily that Hotch had not known. Like the fact that she gave a lot of money to charitable organisations protecting children. Like the fact that she had once had a pet dog, and that her mother had given him away when she had to bring Emily on a diplomatic posting in India. Like the fact that Emily had a very admirable collection of first edition books, worth thousands... And there were other things, all of which were cross referenced with the other missing women.

No results. Hotch felt like banging his head off the table in anger. _Why_ could they not find what they needed to tie all of these women together? An unsub did not simply search out random women for no reason- and he especially did not travel so far away with such precision in order to do so. He had not made one single mistake, and he was proving to be one of their most difficult unsubs ever. It was soul destroying.

At about one thirty, just as Hotch was about to join JJ in the field to do some house calls, there was a call to the tip line that aroused interest. Hotch deliberated for a moment. Tip lines often attracted attention seekers and dramatists. He knew that he might hear something useful, but he, like the rest of the BAU, was disinclined to personally take the tip calls. It made the attention seekers even more vehement, they had long ago discovered.

When Rossi indicated to the phone with a strong nod, Hotch took the call.

"Agent Hotchner, FBI," he said, "How can I help?"

"My name is Louisa Black," came a soft spoken voice from the other end of the phone. One of your agents was in my neighbourhood today. She spoke with my brother at the door. What she described... that man abducting women..."

"Ms Black?" he said, "Are you alright?"

"I think that man tried to kidnap me on Tuesday evening," she said softly, her voice slightly shaky.

Hotch looked to where Rossi stood listening in the call across the room. They focused on each other for a few seconds before Hotch turned his attention back to the call.

"Where do you live, Ms Black?"

"Dumfries, in Prince William County."

Hotch's head snapped up to look at Reid, who was pointing at his map and nodding frantically. Dumfries was so close to Quantico that it was too close to call. This woman seemed genuine and had enough of a story that he wanted to hear the rest of it.

"I can have someone bring you to Matoaca, if you'll come. You could help us save another woman."

"...Alright," she said quietly, "If it helps."

When he hung up, Hotch felt that the day would perhaps now turn in their favour. If the unsub had tried to kidnap her on Tuesday evening, and had failed, then it was more than feasible that he had simply driven to the next town- Quantico- and stopped at a viable point, where he had seen Emily with Hotch and followed them into the building.

Again though, Hotch was struck with that awful sense of unluckiness. What if the unsub had managed to take Louisa Black instead? They would be looking for her now, and Emily would be with him right here in this room, adding to the profile and doing an astoundingly good job, as always. Shaking off the dark thought, he sat with Garcia and told her to keep a background cross reference going between Emily and the other women, just in case the unsub had been deliberate in choosing Emily, but otherwise the link between her and them seemed unlikely. He asked Garcia to instead focus on Louisa Black and her life and details, in an attempt to form a tie they had so far failed to make.

There was still a whole lot more to do, and over the following half hour, Morgan searched through files and discussed the profile with Reid as they traced white vans belonging to convicts throughout Matoaca. With a 2000 person population, there were too many convictions tied to white vans to make any clear connections, and they were also aware that that van could have come from anywhere- perhaps it was not even purchased in Virginia. On top of that, there was no way of being sure that the unsub was convicted of anything in Virginia. He might have been, but they had no way of being sure. The one thing they knew was that he knew the town well enough to navigate around it. But the same could be said of anyone who had lived there for seven or eight months at most.

They were entirely dependent on Louisa Black's story and any hope it might give them of finding him.

Bill Daly checked in with them at 1pm and told them that a parcel had arrived with no specific name on it save "The FBI". He assumed that it was something from a local, perhaps some form of information that might help- but Morgan knew better.

"Usually an unsub like this doesn't involve himself in the investigation- but they like to communicate. And Hotch, she would have had her credentials with her. He might be contacting us with this," he said as they looked at the parcel.

"I know," Hotch muttered, "But we have to see what it is nonetheless." Taking a deep breath, he pulled open the envelope and felt his heart sink when he saw a the tape.

"Ohmigod," said Garcia, and she considered telling Hotch that she was never going to play that tape.

But Hotch was struggling, she could see that. These tapes never contained anything decent, anything pleasant, anything _right_. When he looked at her, she knew that she would not refuse him.

"Garcia, I need you to play the tape."

She took it from him silently and walked back to her laptops, trying to prepare herself- as she did for all the horrible tapes she got throughout her five years of work with the FBI. She tried to tell herself that she wouldn't see Emily, but she knew in her heart that such a lie wouldn't help at all. Nothing would.

Rossi had watched her leave with that familiar glazed look in her eyes, and he nodded at Hotch before following her. He sat next to her when she put the DVD into one of her laptops, and the team slowly moved from their seats, tentatively, reluctantly, dreading what they would see.

Hotch gripped Garcia's seat tightly as the events unfolded on the tape in front of him. JJ covered her mouth with her hands, and Reid's knees seemed to buckle as he struggled to find a seat. A few angry tears slipped down Garcia's cheeks, and she felt Rossi's hand grasp hers tightly as she watched the screen, transfixed in horror at what she could see and hear and almost feel. Morgan turned and violently kicked the wall of the office.

Nobody reprimanded him.

The officers in the room were standing around, quiet and sullen, hearing the terrified shouts of a woman in desperation; a woman they had never met, but who was clearly an instrumental and beloved part of the BAU team standing before them. At the end of the tape, JJ looked away and ran to the bathroom, feeling ill and needing to be alone for a few minutes. Rossi sat with Garcia and made her look away from the screen, trying to force her into an objectivity that even Rossi himself did not have a handle on. He was fuming inside, and his teeth were set in a grimace of disgust behind his outwardly calm face. Morgan paced angrily, thumping his feet against the floor, trying to fit it together in his head and failing miserably. Reid was silent in his chair, his head in his hands, his thoughts entirely detached from his body. He knew that his brain was subconsciously working through all the information to try to find her. But part of him was so shocked that he didn't- couldn't- care.

And Hotch just stood there, looking at the screen as the tape replayed in front of him. Watching her in agony, watching her stand up to her attacker on more than one occasion- and watching her fall down on so many others. He knew that she would likely never be the same again- and his head asked the ultimate question of just how far this unsub had gone to hurt her. He could barely think of the repercussions of these crimes. Emily was good at her job- but Hotch admitted that even he, or Morgan, would not be able to last this without losing part of themselves.

He was still watching the screen after five minutes when JJ came back, and she approached him as soon as she saw him still looking.

"Hotch," she said quietly. "Hotch."

He looked at her slowly. "Yeah," he intoned.

She wasn't sure what to say to him, and she struggled with any words she thought of. Eventually the silence went on too long and he looked back at the screen, right as Emily received a horrible kick to the stomach. Hotch flinched slightly, but said nothing other than that.

Garcia simply stood up and walked away at that point, refusing to look at it anymore, and before long she felt Morgan hugging her, holding her close, trying to reassure her that Emily would be okay.

Rossi stood up too and walked across the room, to the door which led out of the station. "Hotch?" he said, "A word?"

Hotch didn't reply, but walked briskly to the other man and went outside with him. They passed around the corner out of sight of the windows and away from the eerie quiet of the police station, as the people inside came to terms, finally, with the monster they were dealing with.

"We need you," Rossi said. "I know that all I want to do is scream and roar and rip that bastard to pieces with my own hands. And if I feel that way, you feel it tenfold."

Hotch looked at him and nodded, confirming Rossi's suspicion that he was just too damn angry to talk. There were no tears in his eyes. There was no despair there. There was simply a burning flame of rage that would not subside until that unsub had paid for his crimes.

"But we still need you," Rossi said. "You're in a rage right now, so use it to find her. Use it to find her, and deal with it later. If you fall apart, we all will. JJ's eyes are red, Morgan's more angry than I've ever seen him, Penelope's in bits and Reid can't even think straight-"

"I know!" Hotch said loudly. "I know, Dave. But what can I do? We have nothing on this guy, we don't know where he is, we don't know what he's doing or where he might be. We have no damn way of finding her!" he yelled, and he turned to the wall and kicked it hard with his right foot. "I just want her back," he said, with a savage determination.

"So let's go and get her back Aaron. Before it's too late. There's a girl coming in for an interview. She might be the key we need. But the team can't do anything without knowing that you can still lead them."

They were almost yelling at each other, to try to spurn them into action that they almost didn't want to take. This was too real, too much, too great for them to deal with on their own. So Hotch took a very deep breath, and then he nodded. He pulled his jacket from his shoulders and rolled his sleeves up, clenching his fists.

"Let's go," he said, and he turned away from Dave to walk back inside the station, to talk to his team, and to tell them that she was safe. She was alive.

And they would find her.

When he reached Garcia's laptops, he stood in front of them. "Garcia, turn the tape off. We don't need to see it, we've seen it once. We can add more to the profile based on it, but we don't need to see it anymore."

She looked at him and nodded, tapping one key to turn the screaming off, to put the picture away, to lock it in the box of horrors in the back of her head that she never would face again.

"Here it is," Hotch said to them when the silence came. "This is hard. It's harder than anything we've done before. So we need to work harder to find her. We need to add to the profile, Dave, you can do that with Morgan and Reid. We all saw that tape. We all know how important it is to realise that he's trying to get to us. We can't let him. Garcia, you might be able to use something to get more of an image of him. Something more complete to tie with mug shots. Something that might tell us who he is."

She nodded at him and sat back down again immediately.

"Reid," Hotch said, "she needs you now."

That was all he had to say. Reid knew what he meant. Back when Spencer had struggled, Emily had helped. The least he could do was return the favour. He got up and went back to working through the information about the other women, using one of Garcia's laptops to search files- something she usually would not allow, but right now she needed all the help she could get.

"We can find her. It's all right here in front of us. We're close. So we'll keep looking," he said, with conviction in his voice.

And the BAU went back to work. He had shown them his strength as a leader- and he had pushed his emotions aside for later- much later. He dreaded that they would come, but he couldn't think about that dread either. There was an icy ball of fear in his stomach, and he desperately wanted to succumb to it. But he had to be the pillar for the team. All of their hope was based on him. So he would give it.

And if it was the last thing he ever did, he would find Emily.


	8. Chapter Seven Closer

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything Criminal Minds related. Characters are merely borrowed and will be put back later. ;)**

**Suffer and Save**

**Chapter Seven- Closer**

"_Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances."_

_Thomas Jefferson_

It's hard to face the sad things in life. It's hard to face facts when your friends are in trouble, when your family members are endangered, when it all just seems too much to cope with. Hotch had nearly lost it all. In the space of just a few hours, he had most definitely faced one of the worst things he could have. He knew, when he thought about it, that Reid had suffered an Anthrax attack and still Hotch had retained his common sense and good grounding. He was aware that when Elle was in trouble on the train over four years before, he had been the same and had maintained his strength and ability.

And he knew that when Morgan had clung to a train to survive a few months previously, Hotch had made it there to take a very strenuous shot to save his life. Then too he had kept calm and composed; just like always. When Reid had struggled against his addiction and had worried the entire team, Hotch had kept himself collected. When Garcia was shot, it was all about catching the unsub, not about sympathy. When JJ had cried about not being able to warn Henry and Will about the anthrax threat, he had empathised, wanted to tell JJ that he knew how she felt; but he couldn't. There was a job to do.

And yet when Emily was inside the compound, beaten by Benjamin Cyrus, he had barely been able to keep calm. He wanted to pummel his fists against the wall and pull her out of there himself. And the entire team had seen it, and known how he felt, and tried to help him- but there had been no solace for him.

The same thing had happened when Emily had battled her past demons to find out who had killed Matthew. Hotch had desperately wanted to help, and he had been in pieces the entire way through it. He wanted to help her, but he also wanted to do his job. It had been Rossi who had talked him into the road less travelled: he had called the Vatican to help her.

The fact was that Hotch was able to objectify his entire team when he had to- even himself- but Emily was different. For some reason, around Emily he was not Hotch; he was Aaron, and they were two different people emotionally. He adored the ground she walked on and he loved her dearly; there was no way he could objectify her, deny that he loved her, deny that he wanted her home.

It was just too damn hard.

But when Rossi had pointed out to him that he needed to pull that emotion back in and use it, he knew it was necessary. It didn't truly mean that he had to objectify her; he just had to channel his rage in a different way. And he had to stop thinking about that tape. He had taken everything from it that he could or would, and he had no desire to ever hear her in such pain again- not even for a second. It was just too much to bear, especially when he had just pulled himself together to keep the team focused.

In his private time, he would fall apart. In front of them, he couldn't. Even if they did call him a hard ass bully for it, he couldn't compromise his job to be emotional. It just wasn't part of his professional life. And yet for once, he really regretted that.

Louisa Black arrived by dinner time, and she sat quietly in Bill Daly's office, while Daly himself made her a cup of coffee. Hotch wasn't sure if he was the best one to take the interview; he was a man on a wire, and knew that he could afford no sympathy for her without losing some of his cautious calmness, so he sent Rossi and JJ instead, sure that they would be better able to deal with a shaken up young woman.

"Hi Louisa, I'm JJ," started the blonde agent, knowing that casualness would help their efforts. Rossi smiled at her politely and introduced himself also, and then he sat in Bill Daly's chair while JJ sat beside Louisa Black.

"You said that it was two days ago- Tuesday night- when a man tried to abduct you," Rossi began, and she nodded.

"I was on my way home from my lectures. I was driving, and he was in a big van behind me. I took no notice at the start, but when he came up behind me when I was at my house, I realised it was the same guy. I kicked him as hard as I could, but he was too big. My dad heard the noise and he came outside to open the door... And then the guy ran away."

"Tell me, is your father imposing in any way? Does he look strong or intimidating?" asked Rossi offhandedly.

"I suppose... Well, he's about 6'4"," she said, "He was in the army, so he's fit and all, but..."

"But you personally wouldn't call him intimidating," JJ said, smiling.

"Yeah," Louisa confirmed.

"You didn't happen to notice anything about the van he drove? Any numbers on the plates? Even where it was from? And anything about the man himself? Could you describe him to a sketch artist?"

"It was very dark. I'm not sure that I could. I guess I could try," she confirmed, trying to be helpful.

"What about the van?" JJ pressed gently.

"It wasn't from Virginia. I- I don't remember the number or anything, but it was an Oregon plate, I remember that from when it was behind me in the lane of traffic."

"You're sure?" JJ asked, seeking confirmation before she trusted the information she had just been given.

"I'm positive," Louisa said.

Rossi nodded. "We'll get you sitting with a sketch artist. Just try your best," he said, "That's all we ask. Don't worry if you can't remember things, just give it a go."

She nodded and watched them leave, glad that she had come down here to talk to them, but unhappy that she couldn't help them more.

JJ, meanwhile, was rushing toward Garcia. "She gave a description that sounds just like our unsub and also said that the vehicle he drove had Oregon plates. Unless he's switching plates, that means the number of Oregon plates in this state would cut the number of suspects on our list, right?"

"Right!" Garcia trilled, fervently tapping keys into the system, and smiling. "We have it down to 20 vehicles. Which is a big drop, but it's still a pretty big suspect pool too- and three of them are companies, meaning that any of the employees could also be the unsub, technically."

Morgan joined them when he heard the news from Rossi. "20 is too many, and any qualifiers we might ass aren't strong enough to give us a more accurate list. The van will only take us so far. I hope she can give us a decent sketch."

"As well as that," Hotch said, when he arrived, "Check the CCTV of the street Louisa was on. We might get a glimpse of his face- or at least enough of a glimpse to check more records with it."

"Okay," Garcia said, "I'll check, but I'm not so sure that it will work. He's been really smart."

"Yeah," Hotch agreed, "Even smarter than I thought he would be. He's highly motivated and highly intelligent. He knows that he has the power to play with us, and he's using that to get to us."

"He doesn't stalk the women for very long," Rossi said quietly. "It's almost as though he doesn't need to. None of the family members we spoke with mentioned any of the victims being followed- and yet we still can't find anything that ties them together in any way other than that he chose them."

"And still," Hotch said, "There must be something, because it's all a little too exact to fit something coincidental."

"No, wait," Reid said softly, quietly from his seat nearby, looking up to the photographs on the notice board. "I knew there was something."

"What is it?" JJ asked, not quite seeing what he was getting at- they had looked at those pictures hundreds of times, and it had made no difference at all. There was just nothing there but brutality and disorganised pain.

"It's not as disorganised as it looks," he said thoughtfully. "He's targeted very specific areas of the body- he draws blood from the area that protects the spine and when he kicks, it winds his victims. Bruises on their knees and legs show his violence in that area and more than one of them suffered damage and lacerations to the neck. What if it's not all just meaningless?"

"I don't understand," Morgan said, "tell me more."

"He's saying that the particularly violent aspects of the crimes are directed at the most sensitive areas of the body," Hotch stated.

"Exactly," Reid said. "There are very few people who would know that the knees and skin around the spine are so sensitive- but if you were, say, a physiotherapist or an acupuncturist, you would know. I think that must be the area he worked in."

"A physiotherapist. Cross reference that with the van, baby girl," Morgan said- and a very busy Garcia did so immediately. The team said nothing while they waited.

"Nada. Nothing on an acupuncturist search either."

"It seems to fit so well though, Reid is right," Morgan said. "Maybe we've just not got the job quite right. It must be in the health or physical care sector."

"The other question we have to ask is _why_ he's changed her clothes," Rossi said. "The other women were found mostly naked; Emily is wearing a dress."

"And it's an old fashioned one," JJ added.

"How d'you mean?" asked Rossi.

"It's the sort of dress my mother would wear in the summer," she said carelessly, and then she met Morgan's eyes. "Oh."

"His mother," Hotch said. "It would make sense. He's projecting onto women of roughly the same age, all of them strong and successful. What if they're all just a proxy for his mother?"

Bill Daly interrupted their discussion with a sheet of paper. "Sketch is up," he said quietly. Hotch took it from him and looked at it.

It certainly did fit in with the image they had of the man from the film he had sent them. He had never properly revealed his face; the light was too poor for that- but it seemed the same general shape.

"JJ, can you give this to the press?" Hotch asked politely. "If someone knows him, they can help. Release some of the profile, but not any ideas about the stressor... you know the story."

JJ nodded and set off to do her work as the media liaison of the team.

"If it's his mother," Morgan said, "It's safe to say that she was likely an abuser. She was strong and she overtook him easily."

"Yeah," Rossi said, "That fits. If she died recently, it might explain the stressor. Garcia, is it possible to check that sort of thing? We profiled this guy as being in his mid 30s. He's attacking women who are in their 30s, and so it's safe to say that he was a kid when his mother was in her 30s too. So can you find female deaths of women aged about 50ish in Matoaca, about two years ago, when these killings started?"

"Fourteen registered deaths at that time- and before you ask, none of them fit the suspects on the list we have," she said dejectedly.

"That doesn't mean anything really," Reid said. "I was going to suggest that his mother was maybe his first kill."

Rossi nodded and shrugged slightly. "It's possible- wouldn't be the first time we've seen it either. Very possible that he just didn't report it."

"Exactly," Reid agreed.

"So where do we go from here?" Rossi asked, realising that they were, one again and for the moment, at a dead end.

"It's late," Morgan said, "We could do with dinner and some form of rest. We're closer now than we've been before, so we need to keep it all together as best we can."

"He's right," JJ said as she returned, "We're just as tired today as we were yesterday."

"I know," Hotch said. "We'll head back to the hotel and take a few hours rest. But we're all back up at 6. We need to get to the end of this as soon as possible," Hotch said quietly.

He dearly hoped, even as he left the office at 8pm, that tomorrow would be a better day. He was lost without her, and the profiling system they had grown accustomed to wasn't the same either. In missing a member who knew a lot about sex crimes and had generally great insight into criminal behaviour, they were struggling slightly. They could still function perfectly well, but they missed the voice of clarity that she so often provided.

Hotch slept no better. As bad as the night before had been, tonight was nearly worse. He was exhausted, struggling to stay standing up, but every time he closed his eyes, those awful images from the film came running back into his head. He could hear her screaming in his head, he could see the brutality and the monstrous horror she was forced to endure. And he felt like an utter failure for not being able to protect her.

How can a person so devious and so depraved feel luck's light shine on him almost consistently? First Hotch had been only a few feet from the unsub as he went to attack Emily. Then it turned out that she would never have been a target had Louisa Black's father not chased that same man away just a few hours beforehand. His van was never properly in sight of a CCTV camera. His face had never been revealed, though he made no overtly deliberate efforts to hide it. He was like a ghost without meaning to be, and Hotch was sure that when they came to blows, this was the type of man who would not go down without taking as much of the world with him as he could.


	9. Chapter Eight Why We Kill

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything Criminal Minds related. Characters are merely borrowed and will be put back later. ;)**

**A/N: I have an odd funny inkling that people weren't so attached to the last chapter, but I don't know why. Either way, I'm still writing. :D This is the second last chapter of the case! Yay! Hotch/Emily coming up soon! :D**

**And I hope I did a better job in this chapter. :)**

**Suffer and Save**

**Chapter Eight- Why We Kill**

_"I hated all my life. I hated everybody. I was treated like what I call the dog of the family. I was beaten. I was made to do things that no human bein' would want to do"_

_Henry Lee Lucas_

By 4am, Hotch had a thought in his head that wouldn't go away. He was thinking it through, and he was sure that there was something in the file they had missed. He sped his way through a cup of coffee and ate anything the hotel could give him in the dining room at thathour almost too quickly- before rushing to meet Rossi at the door for what he had hoped would be their last day searching. He didn't even ask why Rossi was still up at this ungodly hour.

"I was thinking," he said, half breathlessly. "We've only searched direct links between the women. What if it's something less obvious?"

"Go on," Rossi prompted.

"JJ mentioned yesterday that Louisa didn't see her father as intimidating. Why? He's in the army; he's over six foot tall... Why would he not be intimidating?"

"I don't know," Rossi said, "What were you thinking?" Immediately they began to move toward the car, knowing that they needed to get back to the station to keep working on this while the idea was forming.

"I'm not sure. I just wonder why he wouldn't be intimidating," Hotch said. "The unsub on the tape is just about 6'1", possibly less according to Garcia. You would think a tall army man would be an issue- but he wasn't intimidating- that's what she said... So why did the unsub run away in the first place?"

Reid caught up with them on the way to the car and listened to the conversation before adding his thoughts.

"Louisa Black's father?" he said after a moment, realising who they were discussing.

"Yeah, why?" Rossi asked, thinking that Hotch was onto something for sure, but not really focusing on Reid properly.

"He's in a wheelchair."

Hotch stopped short and looked at Reid. "He's what?"

"He's in a wheelchair," Reid said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Garcia checked Louisa out like you asked; she gives some of her wages to paying for care for her father. He's a paraplegic. He was in a car accident a few years back."

And the entire thing came crashing together for Hotch. "Get in," he said stoically and he drove to the station faster than he ever had before. When he reached the door, he was in full work mode and full leader mode. He had a thought, and he was almost sure that it was the right one.

"Garcia?" he called to the quiet station, not seeing her anywhere around.

"She came with JJ, they should be here in a few seconds," Reid said- but right at that moment, the woman herself walked in. Nobody asked her why she had returned to the station with Morgan and JJ at the same early hour. It was clear that none of the team had had any sleep whatsoever.

"Garcia," Hotch said, "I need you to look at all of the women again, and tell me if any of them had family members who were seeking care for physical injuries."

"Uuh... Okay," she said, knowing that she would understand why in just a few minutes. She rushed straight to her laptops and started working.

"What's your theory?" Morgan asked, coming through the door just after JJ.

"Louisa Black's father wasn't intimidating because he was in a wheelchair. And yet the unsub ran away when he came to the door. The unsub is a big guy, he wouldn't be intimidated by a man in a wheelchair..."

"Unless he didn't want to be recognised," Rossi said, nodding and half smiling. They had it for sure this time.

"Exactly," Hotch said, "So we need his care records and we also need to cross reference that with the other women and their families to make a match to Garcia's original list of the 20 owners of the vehicle we need."

"Of course," Morgan said, "We said he was self employed, working in the physical health sector- his job was sporadic enough to bring him all over Virginia. He had already seen the women beore he took them. Except Emily, because she was..."

"Not involved at all," JJ said softly.

"You got anything?" Rossi asked Garcia as he walked to the laptop to see her results.

"One result," she said, and her face suddenly turned to a huge grin. "One result! We're going to get her back!"

"Tell us more Baby Girl," Morgan prodded.

"Okay, Thomas Randolph. He lives about twenty minutes from here inside the town limits. The paper trail is awful. No bills to his residence, no services, no accounts, nothing. Finding this guy was so hard because he almost doesn't exist. No current job, but there's an expired licence for a carer. It's about two years out of date. Never renewed."

Rossi looked at the screen for a long time. "Thomas Randolph. Born and reared in Matoaca. A local. Bought the van in Oregon when he had a breakdown about three years ago," he said quietly, reading the details from the screen.

"What's wrong Rossi?" Morgan asked, sensing the other man's unease.

"I remember a Colin Randolph," he said quietly.

Garcia immediately started tapping keys. "Ohmigod," she said after a few seconds. "Colin Randolph's in a BAU file. They're brothers."

"Thirteen years ago. He was raping and killing women in the Matoaca area. He only got to three victims before he tried to blow himself up when we got close. I was the last agent nearby. I took a shot, but he moved. He fell backwards from the roof of a hotel outside town."

"I guess that would explain why we got the DVD," Morgan said.

Hotch nodded, "There was never a tape before. He sent it just for us. He remembers."

There was a grim sense in Reid's head that this wasn't going to end so well. He had a feeling that Thomas Randolph was unlikely to go down without a fight.

"We need to get to the house," Hotch said. "All of us, except JJ- we need you dealing with the media, there are already trucks gathering outside. And Garcia, keep pulling information on Randolph."

Within minutes, they were ready to go. They were going to get her back, and get her back safely. And hopefully this entire nightmare would be over in just a few hours.

***

While Rossi drove the car, Hotch considered what they already knew about Thomas Randolph. He was strong and fit, more than able to take Emily down with ease, powerful and easily angered. He was more than aware of his strength and abilities- and he was highly intelligent. He was motivated both by personal vengeance and a need to kill. One of the most volatile unsubs they had dealt with in recent times.

Morgan and Reid got the house first- and immediately they knew there was something wrong. "There's no paper trail to this house," Reid said, "Because no one lives here."

"Hotch!" Morgan called as Rossi pulled the second black SUV into the land around the house. Hotch stepped quickly from the car, and looked at Morgan.

"Hotch, nobody lives here. This place is completely run down. Wherever he is- he's not here. And neither is she."

Hotch sighed and shook his head. "We still need to look," he said. "We might find something in there that might help."

They approached the broken patio doors slowly enough; there was something eerie about the house still, almost as though there were secrets there. It looked as though the entire house had been overtaken by the wildlife around it. There were weeds all over the ground, and the windows were mostly broken, dusty and grimy. Seeing inside was a virtual impossibility, and the slates had long since fallen from the roof, leaving very little protection over the house. Meaning that it was also damp- and that on the inside, nothing was in good condition.

"The wood's rotten", Rossi noted as soon as he stepped inside. "Be careful on the stairs." He had his gun trained to make doubly sure, and he wasn't going to put it down easily. He had been in this house before; it seemed like the ultimate failure to be back here now.

Not that he remembered it all that well really. The rooms had changed, the walls were different, and the personality was gone. This was a dead house, and it hadn't been that way when he was last in Matoaca. And he was also berating himself internally for not working it out sooner. Matoaca was a small town. How could he have forgotten?

He approached the stairs and walked up them quietly with Reid behind him. They rounded the corner at the top and they split up, each opening separate doors. Reid's led to a bathroom. The grime on the sink and around the bath, coupled with the brown water that ran when he turned the tap, told him that this was indeed an uninhabited space.

Rossi had opened the door at the far end of the hall and found a storage room of sorts. And it was in here that they found what they needed. "Reid!" he yelled out, and Reid ran down the hall to see what Rossi had found.

When he reached the door, Rossi was just inside; pulling notebooks from a box that had been on a shelf. Luckily, it had been the first thing Rossi had reached for, and he had found the notes and diaries of T. J. Randolph- their unsub. Immediately, he handed the notebooks to Reid. "Get reading, you're faster at it," he said- and Reid simply did as he was told.

Immediately, some things stuck out. "This is a very smart kid," Reid said. "Normally children don't make notations so clear and concise. Their memories aren't based on specific times or dates, like older people. But this was a neat eight or nine year old who knew everything that was going on around him."

"Check this out," Rossi said, pulling a teddy bear from another shelf, covering his mouth to avoid the dust clouds that rose from it. The teddy bear had suffered a lot; its neck was cut and there were string of wool around its head and arms, almost like constraints. The inner fluff was falling out of its belly, which had been clashed open at some stage- and there were dark marks all over the face, the ears torn and bullied, ragged and neglected.

"Bright kids like to take care of their toys. And neat psychopaths are especially careful. This kid wasn't- yet the tag said TJ, so it must belong to our unsub," Rossi said.

Reid confirmed it for him seconds later. "Our profile was right," he said, browsing the pages of the diary in front of him. "His mother is depicted as a tyrant here. The things she did... they're monstrous. The teddy bear is a reflection of himself and how he felt as a kid," Reid said. "He's not a psychopath. He's just an angry man who suffered a psychotic break and killed again and again, until it's become a condition to keep him going."

"That doesn't explain where his mother is, though," Rossi said. "I agree with you- but we profiled that he might have killed her first. So where is she?"

"Dave! Reid! We found something!" Hotch called. Rossi raised an eyebrow at Reid and placed the teddy bear back on the shelf. He was happy to put it away. It was a reminder of a dark time that he had already seen once before in this town. He followed Reid down the stairs, his gun finally lowered.

"We found her," Morgan said. "In a room at the back."

"So we were right," Reid said, "the entire profile is right. So where would he go next?"

"His crimes are personally based, they all recreate scenes with his mother," Hotch said. "He strangled her after abusing her. So he's recreating that time and time again- but he was never doing it here. Someone would have heard."

"I'll call Garcia and see what I can get," Morgan said, and took the call outside.

The other three men looked around the main hall of the house they stood in, mildly revolted by the destruction of life that had occurred within these walls. "Some family," Rossi said.

"What was the father like?" Hotch asked, half curiously, a familiar twist in his brow telling Rossi he was also deep in thought.

"Henry Randolph wasn't alive when I was here. There was a grave in the cemetery. They took good care of it, the mother made sure they went there once a week and maintained it."

"We can go there to see if that's still the same," Reid noted, "But I imagine it might be. This is a guy who sticks to his guns. He's a contradiction in pretty much every way, but he didn't mention his father in a bad light at all in the diaries upstairs. Or at least, not that I saw."

"I think you're right," Hotch said, "I don't think we need to check the grave personally, but he might have left something there recently." He too picked up his phone and dialled Bill Daly's number, telling him to send officers to the graveyard immediately, to look for the grave of Henry Randolph and see if there were any leads there.

And then Morgan came back into the house. "Rossi, you mentioned a hotel."

"That's right, where Colin Randolph died."

"What was it called?" Morgan asked, "If it's still around, he might be there."

"I don't remember," Rossi said. "I doubt it's still there anyway."

Morgan still had the phone to his ear. "Say that again Garcia."

And Garcia spoke quickly for a few seconds before Morgan hung up the phone. "Henry Randolph owned and ran a hotel outside the town. The Hotel Grande," he said, and Rossi nodded his confirmation.

"That's it," he said. "Full of symbolism," he noted drily.

"We need to get there. And we need to get there right now," Hotch said.

Within seconds, they were all moving again, Morgan on the phone to JJ, telling her where they were and what they were doing. He wasn't surprised when she told him she was on the way, with Garcia in tow.

It was almost done.


	10. Chapter Nine Suffer and Save

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything Criminal Minds related. Characters are merely borrowed and will be put back later. ;)**

**A/N: Please have some patience with this. It all takes place over about eight or nine minutes. :D And sorry for the Cliffhanger... ;)**

**And the second part is coming up tomorrow. :) And some of this is taken directly from "I Swear", one of my oneshots. That's the story this one is inspired by, and so it seems fitting to recall it a bit.**

**Suffer and Save**

**Chapter Nine- Suffer and Save**

"_Every man is afraid of something. That's how you know he's in love with you; when he is afraid of losing you."_

_Anonymous_

Everything was going in slow motion, as far as Hotch was concerned. There was just no way he could get there any faster; and yet more speed was what he wanted most in the world at right that moment. He pushed the SUV across the tarmac roads and forced the vehicle to its limits. Rossi sat in the passenger seat, but said nothing about the manic driving. In truth he knew that if it were him, he too would be going that fast. Morgan followed in the other SUV, with Reid hanging on for dear life in the front seat.

***

Emily was just not sure how much longer she could hang on. It had been three days from hell. Every last second of the last few hours had been just monstrous. She wasn't sure what was left to give. He had beaten her, thumped her with his boots, refused her food and given her only water, tied her to the ceiling and started that awful cycle all over again. Her neck was bruised and her back was burning. Her arms throbbed painfully, and her legs were cut. She was past the point of crying- something Randolph had seen many times before- but she was still fighting him off, albeit only generically. That he had not seen before.

She was exceptionally good at keeping her grip on reality. In the past, the women had gone mad, frothed at the mouth and hallucinated. She had hung on until right this moment, and he was strongly considering that this was to be the end of the line for her.

He was bored of her. She didn't fit the bill. Causing her pain was one thing- but she hadn't torn herself apart like the other women had; like his mother had. It was time to be rid of her, once and for all.

He pulled her to her feet once more, noting the blood on her face, the torn and bloody dress he had given her to wear, the bruising on her arms and shoulders from where his blows had rained down just hours before. She was barely able to hang on when he stood her up. She was nauseous and dizzy; the past day had been a horror story of dry retching and ravenous hunger.

But there was no way she was going to let him win; never give up.

Still, there was a nagging thought in her head that perhaps they would never find her. Perhaps she would never see him again. She could barely remember what it felt like to be safe, away from harm, warm and dry. She was always cold here. Her feet were cut and calloused, her eyes were heavy, and her entire body felt sometimes as though it were ice, and others she could have sworn she was on fire.

All she wanted in her heart was to have him hold her, kiss her, tell her it was going to be alright.

But in her head, she despaired. Even if he found her, he wouldn't want her. Not like this.

Her legs dangled uselessly and she coughed sporadically as Randolph tried to make her stand. They had been through this many times even in the last ten hours. Emily was just too tired to hang on much longer. She had been coughing blood for about five hours now. Finally, he made her stand on her own two feet, and she wrapped her arms around herself as she shuddered helplessly in the cold.

And that's when she heard the crude flick of his belt. It was slower this time; not angry.

Oh God.

***

Hotch's SUV screeched to a halt about five metres from the front door of the hotel. He was out of the car within seconds, and he and Rossi were both moving toward the hotel. They had some research from Garcia. The hotel had over 200 rooms. The job in front of them was horrifically long; they would have to check everywhere.

Which was why, when he broke through the door and tried to turn on a light switch, the electricity flickered once or twice, but then failed. They would have to work in the darkness of a hotel that had never been top of the range anyway. The halls were dark and windowless, the rooms practically as dark because of the grime and dirt of the building generally.

Morgan and Reid ran toward them and they started their walk through the foyer as a team, never knowing where Randolph might be- and not wanting to shock him into killing Emily either- which was what might happen if they called out.

Hotch indicated that they would split up, when they were finished in the foyer. Hotch himself would cover the rooms on the ground floor, because there were, according to Garcia, fewer of them. Rossi would go through the second and third floors with Reid- and Morgan was to go through the kitchen, dining area, and any sheds or yards he would find as he went through the hotel. They were each in contact by earpiece, and though they were outwardly calm, they were all privately terrified that they would be too late.

***

JJ and Garcia were driving through the streets in a panic, determined to get there and help as best they could. Garcia had plans of the hotel and she knew that the job the team faced with just four people was a nightmare scenario and they were at a huge disadvantage. Some members of the police force were at work, but in truth it was too early to have enough backup for the BAU. They were alone.

JJ spurned the car on, trying not to think about what might lie in wait.

***

Emily shuddered to herself miserably. There was no way she could fight him off. She was feeling drowsy and ill; she could smell him because he was so close to her now. She barely noticed when her legs gave out from underneath her and she fell to the floor. This alone was something she couldn't take.

She had been expecting the blows to rain down on her for falling over- but instead Randolph lowered himself to the floor on his haunches and smiled crudely at her. It took him a small amount of effort to push her over and then his hands were on her legs, trying to force them apart. Despite her struggles, she couldn't stop him. She found her voice, something she had been missing for what felt like weeks, and she screamed and bellowed at him, trying to beat him away from her.

But she wasn't able to. He was too strong.

***

Hotch threw open door after door on the ground floor, and before long he had a system going by which he would make a quick sweep and leave again. It was evident that Emily was not in any of the rooms he was searching. They were much too dirty and battered- too dusty and not recently used or even opened. Most of the doors squealed and most of the windows were so black that he couldn't see save for his torch. Stumbling through halls in the darkness, he heard something, and he moved toward it.

***

Rossi called out to Reid when he was about halfway across the second floor rooms. Reid came running up the hall as soon as he heard and he met Rossi at the door. It was a clean door- different to the others. It had painted quite recently and there was a light shining from underneath it. This was something. After indicating and making fast calculations, Reid stood to the side as Rossi shoved his foot against the door and blew it open.

What was inside was, frankly, baffling. Rossi lowered his gun immediately. Flowery wallpaper was different to the other rooms. The bed was carefully made and the kitchenette was tidy. The duvet was also old fashioned, and when Reid confirmed that the room was clear, Rossi opened the white painted wardrobe. Clothes- old fashioned dresses and coats.

"They belonged to his mother," Reid said after checking a tag. "They're too old to be otherwise."

"So what, he dresses them in her clothes... which makes sense. But why the wallpaper? The bed?"

"I don't know," Reid said, and walked toward the only other door he had not looked through. He had seen the bathroom- and it was pristine. He pushed open the last door, sure that Thomas Randolph was not in this room (the realisation of which made Reid gulp a little- if Emily wasn't here, where was she?). He looked inside and immediately beckoned to Rossi.

"It's a smaller bedroom. You might wanna see this."

And inside was exactly what Rossi had figured was more realistic. "This is where he sleeps. The bed is plain and the duvet is generic. The walls aren't painted or papered, and there's very little stuff," Rossi said.

"So he keeps the other room..."

"Just like his mother made him keep their house when he was a kid," Rossi confirmed.

And then Reid suddenly walked across the floor and pulled open one of the cupboards.

"Call Hotch," he said directly, pulling the cupboard wide open so that Rossi could see what was inside.

***

Hotch was running. Faster than he had ever ran in his life, trying to find his way through the Labyrinthine halls of the hotel, running toward the screams and cries of the woman he loved. He was close. He was so close.

And then suddenly he ran past it. He turned around and shone his light on the walls until he flashed past a door. The door he needed. Desperately, he reached for the handle. Locked. He pulled himself back and launched himself at the door harshly. It didn't budge. He pulled back again and directed his foot just underneath the lock, forcing his leg, _hard_, against the wood. He heard the splinter and then he heard a louder scream than any before. Desperately, he repeated his movement and the door sprang open. He descended the stairs to a house of horrors.

***

Garcia was outside with JJ, and she glanced up at the hotel, thinking of the horrors that had been happening inside- and feeling vaguely unsurprised. It was the sort of hotel where a cliché horror film might take place. And she was feeling very uneasy- almost as though it was a bit too quiet to be the centre of a serial killer's web. It was dowdy and drab, and the sign was almost entirely gone. Only the dust outline of the letters remained for the most part.

She looked across at JJ, who was cleared for field duty- but she wasn't inside, because she was talking to Reid on the radio. And it was sounding very worrying. They had found something- and they hadn't been able to contact Hotch to tell him, she gathered from the conversation.

JJ sounded urgent and worried, telling them to get out as soon as was possible. Garcia was very, very uneasy.

***

Hotch was not the type of man to hesitate. And at right this moment, he was definitely not going to hesitate at all. His sleeves were already rolled up and he had abandoned the thought of using his gun. Anger and rage boiled over and he launched himself across the room, shoving Thomas Randolph away from the crying Emily on the floor, and throwing himself on the taller, heavier man, immediately having the element of surprise on his side. He lashed out, fury taking over, and felt an odd satisfaction when Randolph's nose flamed into a bright red gush of blood.

Neither was Randolph stupid or incapable. He pushed Hotch back and was on his feet quickly, hitting out at the BAU leader, catching Hotch angrily across his shoulders and back, leaving him slightly winded. Randolph reached over and pulled Hotch into a headlock- and Hotch, knowing that Randolph could easily string him up- hit out with his left elbow, forcing it into Randolph's side angrily, and when the quiet "oomph" came, Hotch pulled away and prepared himself for the rest of the fight, grabbing an army knife from the table near the stairs and facing Randolph once more. It took him just seconds to take Randolph to the floor again, and he pummelled his fists against the other man's chest and head, solidly determined to inflict so much pain that Thomas Randolph would die right there and then. He lashed out with the knife in his hand, and drew blood. Randolph roared loudly, and struggled against Hotch.

He was caught off guard by Randolph's ability to recover quickly- and once again, the bigger man fought back and shoved Hotch away, breaking for the door and thumping up the stairs to get away, running through the hotel as quickly as he could, dragging an injured leg behind him.

***

Rossi pounded down the stairs and around the corner- he was now worried about where Hotch was, and they needed to leave the hotel. Now.

He saw a shadow move at the end of a barely lit hall, and he called out to Hotch. And then he recalculated. No way was Hotch that tall or that large. This was Thomas Randolph.

Unfinished business, he thought drily, and ran after the escaping shadow.

***

Hotch struggled to his feet and looked around. He had seen her just seconds before and ignored her in his blind rage. He wiped a small pool of blood from his mouth and clenched his fists a few times to relax the muscles and to ease the pain in his bleeding knuckles. He squinted in the room and searched for her.

And then he saw her. Or at least, her bare leg. A sick feeling woke in his stomach and his knees shook as he walked closer. Please_, let her be okay. Please, please, please, please, let her be okay._ He prayed to every God he knew of or had heard of in the few seconds it took him to keep the vomit and shock away and walk closer to her.

As soon as he got there, he knew that she had made it. Her eyes were open and blinking, looking straight at him as though she had been waiting for him. She said nothing, but allowed him to get closer to her. Her clothes were destroyed; modesty and dignity forever damaged by the man who had just ran from the room because he was no longer in control.

Shouts out in the hallway of a disoriented team went unanswered as he reached to his left and pulled a blanket from the bottom half of the old wardrobe nearby. He tried to reassure her as he went about dragging the material across her back and covering her with it. He dropped his gun and left it there, all other things, protocol included, forgotten as he moved closer to her.

Her eyes burned into his and he wanted to do nothing other than hold her forever; but first he had to get her out. He put one arm under her legs and another around her back, lifting her into the safety of his chest. She managed, somehow, to fix her arms around his neck and turn her body to face him, her eyes closing, for the first time in days, as her cheek pressed against him.

He muttered soft assurances and reassurances to her, holding her close to him, hearing her shudder and cry, feeling the matted blood in her hair, seeing the damage to her face and neck, knowing that her legs were cut and bruised- and wondering, had he been too late after all?

***

Morgan was assessing the entire situation while JJ was talking to Reid on the radio line. This was more than he had bargained for- and there was no way he could stop it. They simply had to get out- with or without Emily.

Otherwise they were all going to die.

***


	11. Chapter Ten One Day

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything Criminal Minds related. Characters are merely borrowed and will be put back later. ;)**

**A/N: This is something of a chapter for the team- but a lot of it is emotion and character based. I hope I got it right. And as a bit of a tiny testament, the quotes you see here are the last words spoken by Hotch in the Season Four Finale.**

**Everything in italics represents a flashback.**

**And finally, this is a long chapter. Tomorrow's my birthday, so I might not update. Forgive me! :D**

**Suffer and Save**

**Chapter Ten- One Day**

***

"_Sometimes there are no words, no clever quotes to neatly sum up what's happened that day. Sometimes you do everything right; everything exactly right, and still you feel like you've failed._

_Did it need to end that way? Could something have been done to prevent the tragedy in the first place?"_

***

He looked around until he couldn't anymore, and then he sat down- hard- on the plastic seat, and let the tears fall. He buried his head in his hands and rubbed his eyes until they burned. His head hurt, his lungs hurt, his back ached and he felt that his soul was well and truly destroyed.

It was just too much. Even when he thought back, it was too much. It was a disaster scenario, a nightmare. A brush with the Devil in his hometown.

***

_Hotch knew the building well enough to know where he was going. He left the light on in the basement of terror and he walked away without a word, holding her in his arms, tucking her as close as he could. He would never, ever, ever let go of her again. He would never let her into such dark and lonely places; such suffering and such hate._

_He swore it, right then and there, into her ear, "I will never let you go again Emily. Never."_

_The soft, cracked whisper that responded scared him more than anything. She had been broken and_ _defeated, entirely lost and alone- desperate screams for help and hours of crying teamed with days of exhaustion meant she sounded like half the person she had been._

"_I'm sorry Aaron. I'm sorry..."_

"_This was not your fault. You have nothing to be sorry for. It was him Emily, not you. Never you," he said deliberately, his voice shaking despite his determination._

_She nuzzled her nose into his neck and tried not to shake._

"_Aaron. Take me home," she sobbed, "Take me away from here."_

_His race through the darkest days of his life, was over. _

"_I will Emily," he said, tears threatening to slip down his cheeks, "I swear I will."_

***

Morgan stood about four feet from him, but said nothing. There was nothing to say. Nothing in the world that could make it better; that could make them feel better for what had happened- such a waste of life. He sighed miserably and pressed his back against the wall, sliding down until he hit the floor, rubbing his head with his hands.

***

_Morgan ran down the corridor with Reid fast on his heels. He went down the stairs as fast as he could, hitting the first floor corridor and racing down it to the next set of stairs. He didn't even realise that Reid had stopped and was glancing at the floor. He just ran on. He made it to the ground floor and yelled for everything he was worth, calling Hotch, wondering where the hell he was, trying to see through the dark corridors and failing. _

_Then he saw movement. Someone was up ahead. Out of the darkness came Hotch, with Emily gathered in his arms. His mouth was set, his lips pushed together, his nose bleeding slightly and a cut on his eyebrow. But he was alive- and so was Emily. And that meant they could get out._

"_Hotch, man! Upstairs, there's a bomb. It's set to a timer I can't find- I have no idea when it will go off, but when it does we're dead. We need to move- now!" he said, panting heavily and trying to rush the other man, who now looked as though he had the weight of the world on his shoulders._

***

Reid wasn't totally sure what to do with himself. He had been sitting in the same seat, next to JJ, for what felt like hours. He had seen Hotch collapse into sadness, and he had seen JJ wiping tears from her eyes. He could see Morgan just across the room, sitting with his legs bent, his arms wrapped around his knees, his head against the wall, his eyes closed.

Reid thought about the statistics for crimes like these. He had seen it all before, day after day, week after week, month after month. The most prolific serial killers in the world- he had seen them all, Frank Breitkopf, Floyd Feylan, sometimes they blurred into one. And yet he had never seen anything quite like the Randolph Family.

***

_Reid left Morgan run ahead when he saw the dot on the floor. Through the dust, he could see a small speck on the floor- and it was a speck that looked very much so like a drop of blood. He stamped his foot against the worn carpet to dislodge the dust, and found another drop. And as he walked the path in the opposite direction to Morgan, he found more and more- until he got to a door._

_And when he opened it, he could feel the nausea sweeping through his gut._

_He had never seen anything like this before. Body after body, stuffed into the room. On top of each other. Dried and congealed blood on every surface- walls, floor, ceiling. It became clear to Reid that this was the room that would stay in his mind forever._

_And he knew from looking that some of these bodies were over four years old. Some were entirely decomposed, some with skin still attached- and the more recent ones, the ones whose faces he could still see, were the worst._

_Over two years, Thomas Randolph had dumped nineteen bodies on the streets of Matoaca. But there were tens more that he had abandoned in this room- and his two year streak, Reid suddenly realised, was entirely to bring the FBI down to Matoaca to hunt him._

_He had known who Emily was, and when the opportunity arose, and Louisa Black had escaped him, Thomas Randolph had gone to finish his business with the FBI._

_Reid took one last look at the room. There were at least seventy bodies in it. Seventy. Seventy young women whose lives had been destroyed by the malevolent soul of a man seeking revenge._

_Seventy._

_Closing his eyes and trying his best to ignore the torrid smell of death and decay, Reid closed the door and ran after Morgan- along the way, desperately yelling for Rossi._

_The bomb was meant for each of them. Thomas Randolph would keep them in the building until at least some of them were dead._

_It was his mission to destroy the BAU._

***

JJ got up after five minutes and walked away. She needed coffee- and she needed it badly. Along the way she stopped and just stood in the middle of the hall. How was it that with all these people passing by, she felt so goddamn empty? So alone?

She had wanted to call Will, talk to Henry, be with her family and have them be there for her. But she couldn't bring herself to do it. Not until she knew the full story- not until she knew that they were going to be alright.

While she stood there, Garcia came from the same machine she was headed to. Penelope stopped and looked at her. But she didn't say anything. In truth, there was nothing to say. It was all still a little bit raw. She put her coffee on a free chair next to where JJ stood, and then she wrapped her arms around the other blonde in a warm embrace, hoping that someday soon, everything would be alright.

***

_She had hung up the phone some three or four minutes beforehand. And she was standing in the street with Garcia, fidgeting, trying to work out what was going on inside, trying to make it all work out in her head, imagining scenarios where they would all emerge into the sunlight of the day, Emily standing with them, the entire thing having been only a practical joke._

_But she knew that wasn't true._

_Garcia was nearby, her fingers pressed to her lips, her face a contortion of concern as she willed her team to come back to her; to tell her they were all okay._

_But there was a bomb in there. And she knew that some of the team didn't know where the rest of them were. And she knew that at any second, that bomb was going to blow them to pieces; she might never see them again._

_It had been bad when it was just Derek._

_It was worse when they were all involved._

_Within a few seconds though, Morgan ran from the building and Hotch followed, blinking in the sudden sun, Emily wrapped in his arms, alive but severely injured and severely hurt._

_Reid came through just seconds later, his face paler than usual as he headed away from the team to a nearby hedge._

_JJ had never, ever seen a member of her team throw up before. Neither had the rest of them, and Morgan immediately went to ask him what was wrong._

_And seconds later, Morgan was running back to the building, screaming for Rossi at the top of his lungs._

_And right at that moment, the entire structure exploded outward in a rage of flame. Scarlet redness overtook the morning, and the sun seemed blocked out by the smoke that blew from the Hotel Grande, destroying its filthy secrets, destroying the lies it held, the lives it had extinguished._

_Almost in slow motion, JJ moved forward, joined by Reid, trying to pull Morgan back from the flames. _

***

Hotch looked up when the door opened. He was beckoned, and he rose immediately to go with the doctor.

***

_Aaron left the building as quickly as he could, holding her, feeling her in his arms, thanking whatever God existed that she was, at least, alive. It would never truly be a consolation; he knew in his heart that there were days to come in which she would wish she had died. But at right that moment, she was alive and she was safe._

_And that was what mattered most._

_He saw the paramedics running towards him, the media somehow having got wind of what was going on, cameras pointing in his direction. And all the while, he tried not to cry. To hold on._

_He was at JJ's SUV when it exploded, the building flying up in smoke. He sheltered her head and ducked his own, looking around to make sure everyone was with him._

_But they weren't._

***

_Rossi ran up the stairs as quickly as he could, following Thomas Randolph to the roof. The roof again._

_It was here that he had faced a monster. And it was here that he would face another one, a darker, deeper, uglier one. But all monsters had something in common. Thomas Randolph too was part of a common denominator. His family had fucked him up. And because of that, Randolph had had to take a long, hard look at himself._

_He had chosen, and what he had chosen was a dark day for mankind. No matter how fucked up a person is, Rossi figured in his head as he stepped onto the roof, no matter how much a family destroys the core values of society and the moral promise for a life worth living, there is no way that passing the parcel is alright._

_There is no way you can fuck lives up as a mark of vengeance- a blazon of personal glory, a despicable front of ignorance in a world that sees too much of it._

_Thomas Randolph turned to look at David Rossi, and the look on his face was demonic._

"_You killed my brother," he said._

"_No," Rossi said, "And I won't kill you."_

"_It doesn't matter if you kill me now," he said._

"_Why's that?"_

"_Because in one minute, this building goes up in flames, taking you to Hell."_

_Rossi was suddenly very aware of the mistake he had made. Unfinished business was one thing. But it was Thomas Randolph who had business to finish; not Rossi._

_Thomas Randolph's business was already complete._

_So when Randolph pulled out the gun and pointed it at his own head, Rossi didn't move. And when the shot was fired, and Randolph staggered, lifelessly, backward, Rossi closed his eyes for a moment, before turning to run._

_As he ran down the stairs inside the building, the gracious curve of the limp body spilling over the rooftop and to the ground was overshadowed by the sudden crack of a flame beginning. Rossi pelted on, feeling the dust move as the building tore itself apart._

_The end of a legacy of agonising pain._

***

Rossi walked back to his team in the waiting room of the hospital. He had suffered a broken ankle on his departure from the building, a piece of rock falling against his leg. His ears were ringing and his throat was burning and dry. His face was cut, and his hands were a little burned.

But he was fine.

It didn't make the day any more of a success. But he was fine.

***

"_And what about my team? How many more times will they be able to look into the abyss. How many more times before they won't ever recover the pieces of themselves that this job takes?"_

***

Emily wasn't sure what to do, or what to say, when he entered the room. She had, only hours before, been as close to him as she needed to be. But now she was in a hospital bed, a gown wrapped around her, her face bloody and bruised, her arms cut, her legs damaged, her back and stomach assaulted in a vicious cycle she would never forget.

And the man she loved more than anything was the one person she wanted more than anything in the world.

And he was the one person she felt she could never look in the eye again.

Aaron walked to her bedside and sat down in the chair. He had heard nothing from the doctor. He didn't know what she had truly suffered. He knew that she was strong; she would tell him, in time.

He tentatively reached his arm out and touched one of her hurt hands. The skin felt warm and familiar, despite the pain. Her wrists were red raw and still bloody. Inside, he was screaming that nobody should suffer like this. Not her. Not anybody.

"Emily..." he started. But he wasn't sure of what to say. To say sorry seemed useless and unreal. So he said nothing for a time.

"Aaron you don't have to be here," she said, her voice still croaky and damaged, raspy and sore. He looked at her- and she met his eyes, a sense of determination in her face.

"You can go," she said.

"I... I don't want to go," he said, unwilling to force his presence on her, but also unwilling to let go.

"Yes you do. Of course you do. I wouldn't want to be here either."

"I don't understand," he said.

"You don't have to stay with me," she persisted. "I'm damaged goods Aaron. You don't want to stay with me."

Her voice sounded incredibly sad and he felt like crying again. She had lost all of her confidence and self esteem. She felt unworthy and dirty.

"Emily, I love you," he said, telling the truth. "I'm not leaving. No matter what, I'm not leaving," he said, "I won't."

She looked him in the eye again, and saw the watery gaze he was giving her. She watched him lift her hand, slowly and carefully, to his lips, and when he kissed her hurt fingers, a tear fell down her face.

"I'm not going to leave," he said.

***

"Well?" JJ asked, roughly an hour later when he emerged from the room. He had stayed with her, held her hand and watched her as she fell asleep. The doctor met him at the door and walked with him to his team, as they finally gathered together to hear the truth, much though they dreaded it.

"She's going to be fine. She's shook up and there are some bad injuries. But you got there in time to save the worst," the doctor said quietly. "You saved her life," he said to Hotch. "She says that you stopped his attempt at sexual assault. She didn't suffer that."

Hotch breathed a sigh of relief, and he wasn't the only one.

"She's hurt, of course, and she'll need a lot of recovery time, and time to regain her trust. But given time, she will make a full recovery."

And then he was gone, and the BAU sat in the waiting room together, slowly beginning to talk it through, working out what had happened, and quietly mourning the loss of almost ninety women- most of whom would never now be identified.

Reid felt battered and still sick- his face was pale and drawn, and he was silent, not talkative, and quite solidly alone. JJ was exhausted and felt useless, her emotions in tatters as she considered what Emily had been through- and what the other women had seen, while that file had sat on her desk for over a year before Bill Daly called her directly for help. Did she cause this?

Morgan couldn't remember a time when he had felt so low. He hadn't spotted any of it. He hadn't seen the tricks, and he hadn't been able to disarm a bomb, despite the fact that that was part of his training. He would never quite trust himself again. Garcia was resting on Morgan's shoulder, stroking his hand and feeling unsure of herself. All of her searching, every day she looked- and just down the road, a man had killed over eighty women in the worst ways, torturing them and defeating them, taking over them- so many lives destroyed.

Rossi believed that he had failed. He had failed to stop the death of Thomas Randolph- and though the world was maybe a better place for the end of that evil, he still felt responsible that over twelve years ago, he had not seen the signs of a boy possessed by his own demons, in a house of horrors that rivalled every other case he had dealt with in his career.

And Hotch sat with his sleeves rolled up, entirely devoid of emotion. It was either bottled up inside for later, or he had cried enough tears in the last three days that he simply had no more to give; he couldn't be sure of which it was.

He sat in the hospital, waiting for Emily to wake again, and feeling quite entirely as though he had failed. And in failing, he failed Emily- and he failed the team. There was no way back from the darkness he knew they would all now face. The doubts, the self loathing, the raging nightmares and pain. Even though he knew that they had done everything right, he couldn't help but feel that the damage caused would stretch beyond the 89 dead women and the two killing members of the Randolph family of Matoaca.

The damage caused would challenge him, and his team, in the harshest of ways in the weeks to come.

***

"_Like I said, sometimes there are no words, no clever quotes to neatly sum up what's happened that day. Sometimes, the day just... ends."_

_Aaron Hotchner_

***


	12. Chapter Eleven Damage

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything Criminal Minds related. Characters are merely borrowed and will be put back later. ;)**

**A/N: Thank you for the wonderful reviews- and the birthday wishes. And a final thank you- for your patience in waiting an extra day.**

**Suffer and Save**

**Chapter Eleven- Damage**

"_Don't be ashamed to cry... let me see you through... Cos I've seen the dark side too."_

_The Pretenders_

She was struggling again. She struggled against the ropes on her wrists and she desperately moved her body to be free. Her clothes were ripped and her nose was bleeding, her ears roared and her throat was dry and scratchy. She cried and she roared and she tried her very, very hardest to escape. But she just couldn't. There was something holding her back; she couldn't breathe; panic rose in her throat and she screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed.

***

Aaron flew from his seat and ran across the room, his heart thumping in his chest. His hands flew to her face, touching her skin delicately, cupping her face gently even as it contorted into a scream. His other hand flew to her arm in an attempt to wake her, and he stroked her hair back.

And her eyes snapped open and looked straight at him. But she didn't relax. His hand was still on her arm, near her wrist, and she reached out with unprecedented strength and grasped his wrist, feeling his skin against hers as a small reassurance- though not enough of a reassurance. She gripped too tightly and he grimaced slightly. She was in pain.

He turned around just in time to see a nurse walk into the room looking mildly concerned. "She needs a doctor," he said.

"It's a nightmare, Agent Hotchner. There is nothing we can give her for that."

He sighed sadly and looked back at Emily. Her chest heaved as she regained some of her calm, but she kept her hand clasped around his wrist, desperately wishing that he would hold onto her forever. Anything to reassure her that there was someone else there. That she wasn't on her own.

She felt weak. Not just physically weak, but emotionally. She had always been independent and strong. She had always been powerful, capable and rational. But in the aftermath of Thomas Randolph's crimes, she was struggling to compartmentalise it. She needed help.

And in truth, she was partially ashamed to admit that. She had spent years and years building herself into who and what she was. She had seen bad times, and she had come through them stronger. She couldn't be so sure this time. She could see no bright light of clichéd hope; the one thing she needed.

And as her eyes scanned the room, to the nurse at the door looking regretful, and the clean, pale walls of the quiet room, she desperately clung to his arm, biting her lip inadvertently, her eyes watering.

"Emily," he said quietly, "Emily, you're okay. It was just a dream. You're fine, you'll be fine. It was a nightmare..."

She groaned ever so slightly and met his eyes properly again.

"You need to calm down," he said, "Emily..." His voice fell to a whisper and he felt her relax ever so slightly. He looked back at the nurse and nodded at her; she could leave. She didn't need to be here if she couldn't help. It might have sounded bitter, but he was feeling that there was nothing and nobody to help her.

"Aaron," she said quietly, "I-"

"Ssshh," he said softly, "Can I sit here?"

When she nodded shakily, he sat on the edge of the bed and kept her hand tied around his, the other hand still on her pale and bruised face.

"I'm sorry," Aaron said softly. "I wasn't there, I didn't get there fast enough, I left too soon, I could have been there, I-"

"No," she said hoarsely, "It's not your fault Aaron."

He didn't say anything. He looked at her face properly, not just superficially. He saw the bruises, but he also saw the soft curve of her skin, the deep black of her hair and the strong line of her cheekbones.

"You're beautiful," he said, distractedly. Emily didn't say anything to him, but she stopped biting her lip and her hand on his wrist relaxed some more.

He leaned closer to her and kept his eyes locked into hers.

"I know that it hurts," he said, "But I'm here. I don't care if it's a nightmare, if it's a bruise, a sore, a cut, I don't care what it is. I'm here, and I am not going to leave," he said carefully, deliberately. "You can hold onto my arm as long as you need to. I won't move," he finished.

And then she started crying, tears falling from her eyes down the side of her face, dripping across his hand, still softly resting against her damaged cheek. His thumb gently brushed under her eye, her bruised, frail eye, and she leaned her face into his fingers.

Once she started, it was almost impossible to stop. And she hated the fact that she felt so very lost; but it wasn't the first time she had needed someone to lean on. When Matthew had died, she had almost lost herself in the battle to find out who had done it. But now she had nothing to occupy her. Every second, she was thinking about that basement, that room, his hands, the pain, the awful, never-ending suffering and pain.

She sobbed cruelly, wanting to stop. But she couldn't. Aaron leaned across her body and rested his fist against the bed, his arm stretched over her, making her feel the tiniest bit safer.

And even while she cried, she reached her other arm up as much as she could, and stroked the soft material of his shirt sleeve. Her fingers touched his strong forearm and she slowly regained some of her composure.

When she was calmer, quieter, and relaxed, Aaron smiled a little at her and nodded softly.

"They said," she croaked, "They said that it wouldn't be easy to trust people..."

"I know," he said, "It never is when you've been hurt."

"But I trust you," she realised. She wasn't scared when he leaned over her; she wasn't frightened when he was so close to her. All she felt was calm.

And then he leaned closer still, and pressed his lips against her battered cheek cautiously. It was a risky move to take, but she didn't pull away. She didn't flinch, she didn't hurt, she didn't cry. She calmed down even more and pulled her hand from his wrist. He held her hand more gently, and stroked his fingers against hers slowly.

She would need time. But it was time he would give, willingly and without complaint, over and over again.

***

When Morgan came to the hospital, he aimed straight for Emily's room and walked inside, to see Hotch sitting on the side of her bed, still holding her hand, a determined look on his face as he watched her sleep. Every now and again, she gave a small jerk, or made a small movement, and when it happened, he squeezed her hand softly, reminding her that he was there.

He was there, and he wasn't going anywhere.

Morgan walked to his boss, and glanced at Emily, speaking in a half whisper, so as not to wake her.

"How is she?" he asked.

"Damaged," Hotch said, "But she'll be fine. She's sore and she's hurt, but she'll okay. Eventually."

"I talked to the doctor before I left earlier," Morgan said, "And he said that he'd never seen anyone so strong pass through here before. He seemed sure that she'd be okay."

Hotch nodded, and looked back at her.

"Have they said how long she'll be here for?" Morgan asked.

"The nurse came in about two hours ago and said she'll be here for a few days, for observation."

Morgan took his turn to nod. There were questions he really wanted to ask, but it was hard for him to ask them. It would have been hard for anyone.

"... JJ and Garcia said they'd be by later," he said, as though to fill the silence. Hotch simply nodded again, and he then looked directly at Morgan. As though he knew exactly what the other man wanted to ask, wanted to say.

"How hurt is she really?" Morgan intoned.

"Very," he answered directly. "There are bruises, and there are burns. There are lacerations and small cuts. There're three broken ribs, two fingers and her cheekbone. She's got a fever, and she's coughing up some blood. They say it will go away within a few days as the skin in her lung heals."

"Does she remember, or has she blocked it out?"

"I'm not sure," Hotch answered. "I haven't asked, and I don't intend to for a little while yet. She needs to process it, just like the rest of us. I'm just glad that we got there in time. Minute, Morgan. We had minutes, to get in, and get out, and get her out."

"It was close."

"It was too close," Hotch said vehemently, "And it was all going on in our back yard."

Morgan knew what he was feeling. Since earlier that day, he had felt totally useless and had questioned everything they had done, start to finish. He wasn't sure whether he had been seeking to blame himself, or whether he was seeking atonement.

What he found was neither. The fact was that the team had seen cases like this before. Where an unsub had been ridiculously lucky, and where it seemed that the devil himself had guided them on their quests of darkness. And yet at those times, the team had always come out with their heads held high, knowing that they had done the very best job they could have done.

This was no different. Emily would perhaps never recover completely. She would have the empathy that Reid fought against every day- an empathy that had nearly killed him. It would always affect her, and she would fight it just like Reid always did. Morgan knew that he had done the right thing, that Hotch had made the right choices, that the profile had been correct and that they could not have gotten to Emily faster than they had done.

But it aggravated him that it was someone he loved lying on the hospital bed. He couldn't find atonement- even though everything he had done was correct.

He sighed slowly and looked back at Hotch.

"We can't blame ourselves for this," he said, "We did the right things. The only thing different is that this time it was Emily."

"Yeah," Hotch said, "I know. But it doesn't help."

Morgan nodded. He knew that. He knew it just as well as Hotch did. So he changed the subject.

"We booked into the hotel for another few nights," he said. "We want to be here for her."

"Good," Hotch said, "Has Strauss called yet?"

"Earlier. She talked to Rossi. He told her the whole story. She said she'll talk to you when you get back."

"Great," Hotch replied drily.

Morgan knew that as long as Hotch was with her, Emily was safe. And the last thing she needed was to be crowded.

"I'm going to go get some dinner with Reid and Garcia. When she wakes up, will you ask her if she'd like to see us?"

"Sure," Hotch said and smiled slightly. Morgan was effortlessly thoughtful. It was why he was such an essential part of the team.

***

The next time she woke up, Aaron was still sitting in the same seat next to her bed. His hand was still holding hers, but his head was down, pressed against the bed, and he was sleeping softly. Emily smiled to herself and felt her cheek burn as a result. She didn't truly care.

She moved her hand carefully from his, trying to wake him, and her fingers found their way to his black hair. Even when she touched him, she felt that little bit warmer. She had missed him. She had maybe only been gone for three days, or less, but it had felt like forever. She felt awful that he was sitting with her for hours at a time, keeping an eye on her, making sure she was okay. But she also knew that if he wasn't there, she might not be able to sleep properly, or hold the tears back.

What she wanted most, was to scrub her skin clean of Thomas Randolph. She wanted to yell to the rooftops what he had done to her- but she had a sick shame in her stomach that prevented her from talking about it at all. She knew that to try was futile. She would need a lot more time before she could confront what had happened in that basement.

She looked at her sore wrists and hands, her broken fingers and the lashes and cuts on her arms.

She felt ugly, drained, unattractive and destroyed. There was no way he would still love her if he saw the full extent of her injuries. And some of them had not yet been treated by the doctors, because she had simply been in too much pain to allow anyone near her.

The day ahead of her, she knew, would be horrific. She had been told, calmly, that a sedative was available of she wished, but Emily knew that she would never accept it. She needed to be able to say no. Because that was what she had been deprived of, and she was never going to let that happen again.

She also intended to find out the full story about Thomas Randolph. All she knew at right that moment was his name. She needed to know the rest of the story, because otherwise she wouldn't be able to face the truth of who had taken her and why he had done what he had done to her.

She was thankful- forever thankful- that Aaron had entered the room when he had. That he had pushed her attacker aside and saved her the horror of Randolph's end plan. Without Aaron, she would have been raped and beaten, then strangled and left for dead on a cold wooden floor. And the image of what had not happened was just as shocking as what had. She had been so close to suffering the worst thing imaginable- had Hotch not been there, she would be entirely gone.

A nurse came to the room and glanced inside, seeing her with a sad look on her face. The nurse walked closer and spoke to her gently.

"Would you like something to eat?"

Emily nodded softly, but didn't take her eyes from the man who had literally saved her life.

And yet he blamed himself for everything that had happened.

Slowly, she came to realise that Randolph had not just hurt her. He had devastated her entire team.


	13. Chapter Twelve Slow Process

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything Criminal Minds related. Characters are merely borrowed and will be put back later. ;)**

**A/N: It's a Hurt/Comfort chapter! Wahey! It might be a bit short, but I didn't want to be verbose.**

**Suffer and Save**

**Chapter Twelve- Slow Process**

"_Where there was weakness, I found my strength- all in the eyes of a boy."_

_Celine Dion_

Emily felt tired no matter how often she slept, or how long for. And yet, every time she opened her eyes, he was still sitting there. After a while, she had gotten worried and asked the nurse how long he had been there; her internal clock wasn't good (in truth, she barely knew what day it was, let alone how long she had been in the hospital) and she needed to know how many hours he had spent at her bedside.

"He's been here for two days," the nurse said softly, trying not to wake him as he slept, "He won't leave. We've asked, but he just won't do it."

"Has he eaten?" Emily asked, her concern growing.

"The other agents bring him food and coffee, things like that. But he's not left this room. He's really devoted to you honey. Keep a hang onto him."

Emily nodded her head gently but didn't reply to that, and when the nurse was gone, she reached her hand out and touched his leg softly, calling him quietly, hoping she wouldn't force him from his sleep and worry him.

His eyes opened after a few seconds, and his immediate first question was "Are you okay?"

She looked at him as sternly as she could manage. "You need to go home Aaron," she said quietly, her voice ever so slightly less croaky, "I'll be fine without you for a few hours."

"I'm not moving," he said, "I told you that. And I'm sticking with it," he finished determinedly.

"So your back doesn't hurt? Your legs aren't cramped? Aaron, someone else can watch me for a while, it doesn't have to be you. You'll make yourself ill. You've been here for two days now."

Why was she worrying about his health concerns, he wondered, when her own were so drastically poor at that moment.

"I'm not leaving," he said again, and held her hand calmly for a few minutes.

When the nurse came back, she looked a bit more apprehensive and she addressed Emily immediately.

"I'm afraid it's time to treat some of the injuries we couldn't work with yesterday," she said to Emily, who visibly grimaced. "It will hurt," the nurse said, "But the sooner it's done, the sooner you can leave."

That sounded fair, but Emily didn't want Aaron to see the damage. What if he was so disgusted that he simply walked away from her? He was the only comfort she had right then; she had privately dreaded what would happen if he had taken her advice and went to the hotel for a night. She couldn't risk him leaving for real. It seemed weak and silly, but Emily needed someone there- and he was the someone she needed most.

"I'll leave if you wish," Aaron said softly to her, immediately noticing her reservations.

"Actually, the doctor was hoping you'd stay with Emily, so that she could see someone she knows while..." the nurse interrupted quietly.

Emily wasn't sure what to do. On the one hand, if he left, she'd see the entire horrible story again- and it was already burned into her head. She had no desire to ever feel such fear again. And on the other hand, what were the chances that he would still want her, when she was so very ugly?

Emily wasn't a self conscious woman. She wasn't the type to fish for compliments or to be self deprecating. Thomas Randolph had destroyed her resolve, and she felt quite unsure of herself where before she would not have thought twice before deciding.

"Stay," she said. She decided to risk it- purely because she needed him with her at that moment. She would simply have to trust him; even though her ability to trust was possibly damaged beyond repair.

Aaron moved his chair closer to her bedside and stroked her hand when the doctor came into the room in a flurry of movement. Emily jumped slightly, still not sure about her surroundings. The doctor noticed but said nothing, preferring not to draw attention to her discomfort.

"You're looking stronger today," he said, "Which is good progress."

Aaron smiled at her reassuringly and kept her hand wrapped in both of his. She was nervous, he could feel it.

" We need to properly look at your back and legs," the nurse said calmly, "To help the healing along a little."

Emily said nothing whatsoever, but she was half frozen with fear. People touching her when she didn't want them anywhere near her. At the best of times, she was fiercely private. After the Hotel Grande, she was worse than ever.

She grasped the hands around hers tentatively, almost begging for help as the nurse helped her to turn onto her stomach. Emily's eyes flickered as she fought away tears. She couldn't believe what he was about to see...

And then he surprised her somewhat. He pulled his chair to her head, and focused on her eyes. "I'm here," he said. She opened her eyes and looked at him, desperately hoping that even when he saw the wounds, he wouldn't wince or flinch away...

When the nurse pulled the gown apart, Aaron immediately saw the damage out of the corner of his eye, but he didn't look away from Emily's eyes, which were staring into his, her hand tightly wound inside his. She was terrified.

Emily felt naked and alone. While she was wearing white cotton panties, every inch of damage was plain and open for him to see, not to mention the doctor and nurse she did not know and did not appreciate. It made her skin crawl to think that they would touch her...

When the doctor's hand gently pressed her skin, she buried her head against her arm and felt the tears coming on. She felt so dirty and so used in that moment- even though in her head, she rationally knew that he was doing his job and nothing more. She closed her eyes and tried to stop the awful shuddering fear in her heart.

And when she lowered her head, Aaron had a full view of the pain she had suffered at the hands of a monster in a man's clothes. He saw the steaks of blood across her back, the deep cuts that hissed and stung against her skin at every second, the ugly marks that she would never, ever be rid of. He could see the black and purple bruises on her legs, the blisters on her ankles that were even worse than the ones on her wrists. He could see the lashes where the belt buckle had hit her back and legs. Her thighs were raw and bleeding in places- and Aaron felt a swell of fury in his stomach. Imagine if he had not gotten there on time. Imagine if the worst had happened... And then all he wanted to do was kiss her and tell her he loved her, that it would be okay, that he was sorry...

But in his heart, he knew that wouldn't help. So he looked back to her and whispered reassurances to her. He whispered because his voice was shaking so much that he wasn't sure he could talk properly.

Her hand was still clasped in his own, and he reached it to his mouth and kissed her fingers again, trying to show her that it didn't matter to him what damage was done.

Emily pulled her head back up and looked at him for a long time. She could feel the doctor's hand trailing across her leg, and she winced at it- though only half of that wince was attributable to the pain he was inadvertently causing. She just wanted them away from her.

She clutched at Aaron's hands again, trying to pull him closer, feeling the nurse tentatively applying some cream or another to her back, before bandaging the wounds to give them some added care. Emily flinched at every finger's touch, and Aaron pushed his head down, craning his neck closer to her, his eyes looking right at hers, watching her cry.

"It will all be over soon," he said, "And it won't be so bad next time."

She believed him, and tried to invest in what he had said. It barely worked, and when she felt the doctor's hands against the inside of her thighs, tears came faster still. "Make it stop," she said to Aaron desperately. He looked at her for a second, and then he did what she had asked.

"Can we stop now?" he said, looking over her head to the nurse. "It's upsetting her, which is the last thing that will help."

He watched the nurse and doctor silently consider it between themselves by glancing at one another, and he breathed a sigh of relief when they agreed to stop and let Emily rest.

As soon as they were gone, Emily seemed to relax ever so slightly. Aaron was faced with the difficulty of helping her back to a normal lying position, because he knew that she would be uncomfortable to remain as she was.

"Can I help you?" he asked, as she started to move. She was already in pain, so she just nodded, her lips pressed together to stop the groan that wanted to escape. Aaron helped her as best he could, delicately moving her legs to stop her from injuring herself as she managed to turn onto her back. When she was finally lying flat, he pulled a sheet over her and pushed the tears on her cheeks away before taking a seat on the side of the bed again, leaning over her, moving the hair from her face.

He gripped her hand tightly and waited for her to talk or move or make a gesture. When she did, she caught him off guard completely. She lifted an arm to his shirt and pulled him towards her, with as much strength as she could muster.

He moved as she wanted him to, until eventually he was lying with her on the bed, her fingers tied with his, one of her arms tracing a pattern across his shoulder.

"I thought you'd leave," she confided. "When you saw, I thought you'd leave."

He sighed at her and reiterated his promise.

"I said that I wouldn't. And I'm not going to, really. No matter how hard you try to get rid of me."

"But it's so ugly..." she murmured.

"You'll never be ugly. I don't care about old scars or new scars. I care about you, that's it."

"You won't leave," she said, and it wasn't a question this time.

"Never," he said- and he found that he meant it. It wasn't a clichéd promise or a childish swear. He meant it.

She smiled a little at him, and he was surprised when she settled her head on the pillow, as close to him as she could get, and closed her eyes. She was tired again, but his being there was a help. Even as he lay on the pillow and watched her drift off, he felt that old surge of love that he always felt for her. She was still his Emily, nothing would change that. And she was slowly but surely beginning to trust him more and more.

He settled his head next to hers on the pillow, one of his hands still holding hers, keeping her with him, making sure she was alright. Before long, his eyes began to droop slightly, and when nobody interrupted them, he slipped into darkness and slept fitfully for a few hours.


	14. Chapter Thirteen This Team

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything Criminal Minds related. Characters are merely borrowed and will be put back later. ;)**

**Suffer and Save**

**Chapter Thirteen- This Team**

"_To the world you may be just one person, but to one person you may be the world."_

_Brandi Snyder_

It seemed devastatingly beautiful to Morgan that Emily was sleeping quietly, her face pressed against Hotch's chest as he lay next to her, his hand entwined in hers across their bodies. He had only been there for about thirty seconds, and he wasn't going to stay for much longer; it was just so amazingly calm, after the horror of the past few days, that he felt all the better for seeing it.

He left quietly, to wait outside, knowing that Hotch would not be comfortable for the team to see him so close to Emily. It was one thing to admit that he loved her when there was an emergency. It was quite another to show that outwardly in front of the team- especially to such an extent and at this time.

When Morgan quietly closed the door behind him, he was met by Garcia, who was just walking down the hall. "They're asleep," he said quietly, and she took a seat to wait for a time when Emily was more receptive to visitors. Just a few seconds later, a nurse wandered down the hall and smiled at Garcia and Morgan, noting immediately the FBI identity badge hanging from his pocket. "She'll hopefully be free to go home tomorrow," she said to them, passing on good news they needed to hear.

"She doesn't need more care?" Garcia asked worriedly; she had heard from Morgan that Emily was struggling. She hadn't been able to face seeing Emily properly before today. Neither had JJ- and Rossi had had to go back to the BAU to debrief and do some work, taking Reid with him.

"She's sore and suffering, but Agent Hotchner is her biggest aid, and he's more available to her outside of this hospital. She can visit a doctor in Quantico if she needs to, but mostly what she needs is rest."

Morgan breathed a sigh of relief and sat next to Garcia, smiling at her and seeing his grin mirrored in her face. Emily was on her way back to them.

***

When Hotch woke up, he felt more relaxed than he had felt in days. The familiar feeling of her head pushed softly against him was welcome and he was glad she had not struggled against him or suffered bad nightmares. It made him feel better, to know that perhaps he had helped. But he still could recall his own dreams; the desperately sad look on her face when the wounds and injuries were revealed to him. He had seen shame in her eyes, and that was the last thing he wanted her to feel. She had nothing in the world to be ashamed of. Making her believe that would be difficult.

He gently parted his hand from hers and pulled himself from the bed, sitting into the chair next to it and sighing gently. Emily opened her eyes and blinked a few times to get used to her surroundings. She had not slept so well in what felt like forever. The door opened just seconds later and the nurse from the previous evening came in. It was morning and the sun was shining brightly. She was followed by Morgan and Garcia, both of whom were smiling widely, looking relaxed and almost carefree. Hotch knew immediately that something had happened, and when the nurse relayed the news to him that Emily would only have to stay one more night, he smiled too, the tempered lines disappearing from his face as he felt a real and true smile spread across his features.

There was a lot to be discussed- like how Emily would not be able to live on her own, or report back to work for quite some time (which he knew was not going to be a popular decision with Emily herself), but he left it slide. Garcia talked him into going for coffee, since he looked so desperately tired still, and Emily, elated that he was even thinking about leaving the room, pushed him to leave for a while and get some fresh air.

When Garcia and Hotch were gone, Morgan immediately asked her how she was feeling.

"I'm fine. Really. It will get better in time, and I already feel much better than I did yesterday, so I'll be okay."

"Emily, you need more time before you can say you're fine."

"I know," she said, "But I won't be called a victim either."

Morgan felt that she had every right to insist on that condition. She had seen " victims" hundreds of times before- and it was not a word any member of the BAU wished to know her by.

"Hotch is worried for you," he continued, "I've never seen him in such a state as he was when we first found out you were gone."

"I need him here," she said quietly, looking away. "I thought I'd be fine without him, but it only feels okay when he's near me. It's so foolish..."

"No it's not Emily. You love him, and he loves you. And he walked into that Hotel expressly to save you. There was nothing else on his mind, and he got you out. Of course you need him- but you don't realise just how much he needs you."

Morgan had always been blunt and forward with his friends. Emily, even a hurt Emily, was getting the same treatment. For her part, Emily wasn't quite sure where he was going with this.

"Try not to push him away," Morgan said. It had been the last thing she needed to hear- but she knew what he meant. She would lose every security and safety if she lost Aaron- and he would suffer the same. Morgan saw, perhaps earlier than either of the two of them had seen- that they needed one another much more than either would admit. It wasn't just now, as a result of what had happened, that Emily needed Aaron. It had been that way for quite some time- she just hadn't realised it so much.

"I won't," she said. And she meant it.

***

Garcia walked back to the room with Hotch. She was looking forward to spending some time with Emily, who looked bright and strong in the morning light- much better than she had looked when she had been pulled from the hotel.

"Sir, remember when I got shot?" she said suddenly- out of the blue, and something of a shock to Hotch, who just moments before had admitted to her that he hadn't seen proper daylight in over a day.

He turned to look at Garcia, wondering what she was going to tell him. "Yeah, I remember," he said.

"Well. I felt stupid and ashamed for getting myself into that situation. I didn't want to be called a victim, and I- I found it hard to deal with for a long time."

"I know," Hotch murmured, "We all knew."

She nodded and thought about what she was going to say next.

"Emily's been through much more, and even though she's miles stronger than me, I know that she needs lots of time to think it through, to process it..."

"Spit it out, Penelope," he said softly, knowing exactly what she was going to say.

"Don't let her do it on her own," she said quickly.

"I have no intention of it," he assured her as they reached the door to Emily's room.

***

JJ drove to the hospital about two hours later, after she had called Will and stayed on the phone to him for over an hour. She had desperately needed to hear his voice, and had told him that she would be home later that day. Will, patience personified, told her to wait with her team; they needed her, and Emily surely would want to see her. So she had agreed to stay, despite the longing in her heart to hug her baby and kiss Will. She had realised, over the course of the last few days, that she really couldn't last without either of them.

When she arrived at Emily's room, at about 1pm, the brunette was sitting up in bed, listening to the team relaying part of the story to her, the profile they had put together and how hard it had been to locate her. It seemed odd to JJ that they would tell her this story- but she would later discover that Emily had wanted- needed- to hear it.

When they were finished, she immediately went to her friend and wrapped her arms delicately around Emily's shoulders. Emily smiled into JJ's shoulder and hugged her back. It hurt slightly, but the comfort was needed. The only other person to hug her had been Garcia- and she appreciated that. Her lack of assurance, even around her friends, was to be expected given what she had seen and been through. But it still irritated her. She knew that Morgan and Aaron were no threat to her- in fact, with Aaron she felt entirely safe. It was more a question of her being ready for close contact again, regardless of trust or safety.

"I'm going home tomorrow," she said happily, softly, to JJ, who smiled in return. Not only was it clear to her now that Emily would be alright- but she would be home with her own family sooner than expected.

"That's fantastic," she said, "I'm sorry I didn't get here before now," she added, and barely noticed when Morgan and Hotch left the three women in the room together.

"I don't think I was ready to see anyone. Waiting a day was a good idea. Yesterday was..." Emily trailed off sadly, trying not to think about the doubt, the insecurity, the pain and the utter depression that had been inherent in her existence just yesterday. Already she felt that bit more hopeful.

"Hotch has been here? The whole time?" Garcia asked, to be sure.

Emily nodded, "He never left."

Garcia smiled at the light erupting in Emily's eyes when she considered that, and JJ immediately became aware of the fact that he was clearly undeterred by Emily's injuries. She had always known that Hotch was not only a strong leader, but a compassionate and loving man. She had simply never realised how deep his feelings went, and how devoted he was to Emily.

The entire team had lessons to learn from the events that had transpired. Aaron Hotchner had said, a long time ago, that he loved her. He said it often- but he would never mean it more than when he told her as she lay in the hospital bed, broken and bruised, entirely dependent on him to stay with her. She would not have been able to stop him if he left; but he hadn't even tried. Emily too knew that she loved him. She had just never bargained that any person would have such access to her life and to her very core. It seemed melodramatic and foolish all over again- but despite the fact that she was a strong lady, Emily was entirely in love with Aaron; she needed him, and not just after Thomas Randolph.

***

Reid and Rossi drove back to Matoaca later that day. They had heard that Emily would be home tomorrow, but they both wanted to see her. They missed her.

"Do you think she'll be okay?" Reid asked in the car as they searched for a parking space.

"I think she's strong. Very strong. I think she'll pull through, no matter how long it takes her. I've never met such a determined woman. She wears her independence on her sleeve," Rossi replied.

"What about Hotch?"

"What about him?" Rossi questioned.

"Do you think he'll be okay?" Reid enquired. The question threw Rossi a little. It seemed an obvious thing to ask in retrospect, but in truth he hadn't been worried about Aaron. It was only now, in considering it, that he realised- Hotch was hurting too.

"I think he'll be okay, but they have a choice I guess," he said, cautiously

Reid looked at him, puzzled, and Rossi explained further.

"It's the sort of thing that could push them closer together, or drive them apart because of the stress."

"I hope they stay together," Reid said, "Hotch is much happier now."

Rossi nodded and smiled. "He sure is. They fit together."

***

The night wore on, and Emily felt tired again. She had eaten two meals today- more, much more, than she had eaten the previous day.

"When you come home," Hotch said to her in a moment of silence, "I want you to stay with me."

"I can manage on my own. You have Jack- and work will be busy, and-"

"No," he said simply. "I won't overcrowd you. But I want to take care of you," he said.

"I'm not a porcelain doll Aaron," she said, but she smiled at him.

"I already split my time half and half," she said, "I guess extending it won't hurt."

Hotch looked at her and shook his head slightly, a small smile playing about his lips.

"What are you smiling at?" she asked him curiously. She hadn't said anything particularly funny.

"You. You're beautiful," he murmured.

Her smile widened. She didn't doubt his sincerity for some reason. She didn't think he was joking, or mocking her, or making fun of what had happened to her.

"I love you," she said plainly to him, wanting him to know that she wasn't going to push him away, and she reached for his hand, her torn fingers closing around his. He didn't pull away from her.

"I love you too Em," he said softly.


	15. Chapter Fourteen The Difficult Moments

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything Criminal Minds related. Characters are merely borrowed and will be put back later. ;)**

**A/N: Some more comforting. :) It came to me as an idea yesterday at some stage, and I decided to involve it cos I wanted to give it a go.**

**Suffer and Save**

**Chapter Fourteen- The Difficult Moments**

"_The one who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing... not healing, not curing... that is the one who cares."_

_Henry Nouwen_

Emily was unsurprised- but very grateful- when Aaron left his side of the car and half ran to help her out. She knew that he was afraid she would attempt to get out of the car without him, but in truth she wasn't totally sure if she could do that, so it was best not to try. He treated her with a level of committed care she had never really seen before, carefully holding her waist and propelling her toward him as she moved from the car, keeping her safe. It took him less than ten seconds, and though on a normal day she might have been embarrassed, she was just too tired; allowing feelings of embarrassment to drain her even more wasn't helpful, so she pushed it away. She stood by while he took her bags from the car and then his arm was around her waist, delicately minding her as she moved to the front door of his house.

It felt strange to be back there. She had been there only days before, yet it felt like months. She would miss it when he handed it to Haley. Now that they were getting on better, they had begun discussing the details of the divorce settlement that had been made. Haley had always been in line to get the house, but she had allowed him time to move on and find something else, which he was (sort of) in the process of doing. Things had just gotten in the way and he hadn't finished his search for a decent apartment.

He dropped her bags inside the door and looked at her up close. He hadn't been this close to her in quite some time, his hand tenderly resting on her waist, where she allowed it to stay. She even managed to smile mildly at him, but her heart wasn't in it. Her eyes were drooping and she had slept most of the journey back from Matoaca. It was a name he would never, ever forget- and a place he would desperately try not to see ever again.

Very few of the injuries were fading, but her face at least was healing slightly. The bruises were still very much so present, but the cuts were no longer bleeding and she didn't look quite so pale and lost. This was a safe house for her, somewhere she could be with a person she loved. It wasn't a hospital; there weren't strangers always outside her doors. This was familiar, and just as good as home if not better. She had been attacked at home; here she had always been safe, even in the low moments of the past six months.

Her arms were still bruised and her wrists bloody, but her grip had been firmer as she got out of the car. She wasn't flinching away from him, and she seemed eager to make her own progress too, solidly determined that the experience wouldn't beat her.

He left go of her after a few seconds of standing there looking at her, but she hadn't pushed him away- which was a good thing.

"I'll make us some dinner," he said, "Take it easy, okay? Or you'll end up back in hospital."

She smiled at him, and did a better job of it this time. "I'll do my best," she said, and moved- slowly and carefully- to his couch. The couch where it had all began so long ago, that rainy, stormy night after the Shakespeare Killer case. She sat down and then stretched out on it, tucking her head over her arm and closing her eyes. She had been told by the nurses that experiences like what she had been through often left many problems in their wake. Emily would be lethargic and testy sometimes, and at others she would feel depressed or just plain sad. The important thing, they had told her, was to let the emotion out when she needed to. She could nap, she could read, watch violent movies, yell- anything. But she was never to pretend that it hadn't happened.

She took their advice on board, but she already knew it. She had seen enough cases to keep her on a thin line between sanity and paranoia. She knew that well- and what the nurses had told her was that this entire debacle was not to be compartmentalised into a small box in the corner of her head, to stay there in wait for the dam to break and a flood of emotion to come rolling out. She needed to face it head on.

She knew that physically, she would be fine in a few days (weeks, Aaron insisted, but she preferred not to listen to those grim estimates), and then she knew the real trouble would start. She always compartmentalised and she knew that this time, she would too. That was simply the way she was.

She drifted off into a warm and fitful sleep, feeling safe and wanted, cared for and loved again.

***

Dinner was beautiful. She would never have said, in her time working solely professionally with him, that Aaron was a good cook. But he was. It had been a pleasant surprise, and even though it was a light dish, she felt full and stronger after it. It was at least ten times better than any hospital food.

When she was finished eating, she stood to clear her plate, and was met with a steely glare.

"No," he said plainly.

"Aaron, I can lift dishes," she persisted.

"I don't doubt that. What I doubt is whether you can keep your eyes open for long enough to walk the entire way to the dishwasher with them. And I don't want broken dishes, I've taken a liking to those ones," he muttered, half playfully. She smiled at him, shook her head, and sat back down at the table, mostly thankful that he was at least being humorous and not just outright demanding.

She watched as he cleared the dishes quickly and efficiently, and he was back to her in minutes.

"You look tired. Why don't you go to bed for the night?" he asked softly.

"I should," she said. But I...."

"What is it?" he pressed, hoping he could help.

"I haven't washed my hair in almost a week," she said, "And it would help if I did."

"Okay," he said, not even questioning her reasons; not needing to. "Just tell me what I need to do."

She bit her lip inadvertently and glanced at him, the picture of patience and care sitting near her.

"I can't lift my arms, so I can't reach to do it properly," she began tentatively.

"Do you trust me to help?" he asked her quietly, "And it's okay to say that you don't."

She looked at him for another few seconds, and finally she gave her answer.

"Of course I trust you."

***

They hadn't been totally sure how to go about it. Having Emily bend over the sink was not a possibility; it would stretch her back and hurt her. The same went for the bath, and so the shower was their last resort. Even then, he was unsure of himself. The last thing he wanted to do was to make her uncomfortable. He changed into sweats and a plain white t shirt, and handed her sweats she had left at the house some weeks ago, telling her to keep her own shirt on. "We can wash them afterwards," he said, "The last thing I want is for you to be uncomfortable."

"Okay," she said, and when she was ready, he stepped with her into the shower and turned the water on. He lowered the temperature, knowing that very hot water would only serve to aggravate her already sore shoulders, back and legs. When he felt it was warm, but not too hot, he faced her properly and placed his hand at her hip. "Close your eyes," he said gently, and she did.

Aaron poured the water over her hair and neck, feeling her relax against his hand when the warmth flooded over her. It took him only a few seconds to reach for the shampoo bottle, and with tender, gentle care, he pushed the shampoo through her hair, avoiding the cut on her forehead, carefully detangling the biggest knots and massaging her sore head. It completely relaxed her, and she left her eyes closed throughout.

When he was finished, he carefully poured water over her again, running the shampoo from her dark and now curly hair, his fingers deftly combing over her scalp. It was a shockingly intimate moment- one Emily had had no choice but to ask for. And yet she felt safe and warm and cared for, as opposed to damaged and ugly.

She heard the click of the conditioner bottle and then relished the delicate movement of his fingers through her hair again, never hurting her, carefully ensuring that every single strand was washed and cleaned to perfection.

When the water hit the third time, she knew that he was almost finished. His attention was entirely focused on her head and so he didn't notice when she opened her eyes and smiled a little, the last of the water running through her hair and washing away the dirt and the unhappiness that had festered in her mind for days. She felt sort of... new.

When she moved to leave, he stopped her. "Wait a second," he said, and reached outside the shower. "If you can't reach to wash it, how can you reach to comb it out?" he asked, gently poking fun at her. She smiled a little and blushed a little more. When he finally managed to locate the comb, he pulled it inside and stood in front of her again, pulling the comb through her hair. It was exactly the opposite of her mother's all too recallable efforts when she was a child. Her mother had tugged too hard and hurt too much; Aaron had it just right. It was neither sore nor unpleasant, and she could feel the scrape of the plastic against her scalp- but it was helpful, not sore.

When he was finished, he pulled open the doors again and stepped out, ignoring the unpleasant feeling of his wet shirt and pants in the cool air outside the cubicle. Emily followed him out and surprised him quite a lot when she reached for his hand.

"Thank you," she said, "You couldn't have made it easier..."

She reached up to him and kissed him softly on the cheek. He smiled at her quite uselessly for a few seconds, before reaching, finally, for the towel he had kept nearby for her. It was gently heated from being on the radiator and he put it into her hand. "If you need me, just call," he said, and squeezed her hand ever so slightly before he went outside the door to get dressed into a different shirt and pants.

***

After about five minutes of not hearing from her, he knocked on the door quietly. "Em, are you okay?"

She struggled a little with her predicament and eventually admitted defeat. She picked the towel up from the floor and pull it around her torso. "Can you come in a second?" she asked, defeated.

He opened the door ever so slightly and stepped inside. What he saw upset him mildly. She had managed to pull a fresh pair of pants on, but had clearly had difficulty with a clean t shirt. "What do you want me to do?" he asked.

"Help," she said simply, again pushing away the swell of minor embarrassment. He nodded at her and picked the t shirt up from the ground where she had dropped it.

"Okay," he murmured, when he was standing right in front of her, "Let's go slow, okay?" She nodded, expecting pain to come quickly. But first he slipped the shirt over her head, which didn't hurt at all.

Without saying a word, he reached for her hand and lifted it up, trying not to hurt her. She could feel the cuts stretching and she felt mild discomfort, but nothing majorly difficult. When he had that arm through the sleeve, he looked into her eyes. "You need to drop the towel honey, he said softly, "or we can't do this."

She dropped the towel and adored and admired him for not looking. He reached for her other hand, now that it was obstacle free, and kept his eyes right on hers, encouraging her onwards. He lifted her arm to the other sleeve and pulled it through with great care. Once her arms were through, he pulled the material down, slowly and carefully, making sure not to brush it too hard against her back, and making sure that he did not inadvertently touch her and make her uncomfortable.

When he was finished, he glanced into her eyes and asked her if she was okay.

"I'm fine," she said calmly, but there were tears in her eyes. She just couldn't believe that anyone could have such patience with her.

"If you need to talk to me, I'm here, right?" he said, and when she nodded, he smiled a little at her.

"Bedtime?" he asked, and she agreed, the tiredness fast returning when she was just standing around doing nothing.

The night ahead would define for Emily the true depth of his devotion and caring.


	16. Chapter Fifteen In The Dark

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything Criminal Minds related. Characters are merely borrowed and will be put back later. ;)**

**A/N: It's a little short, but it kind of fits that way. I think. Let me know. :)**

**Suffer and Save**

**Chapter Fifteen- In the Dark**

"_A friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future, and accepts you just the way you are."_

"Is it okay?" she asked, desperately hoping that he wasn't offended. He had earned her trust, she knew that. But there was no way she could face sleeping beside him for an entire night. She needed to be alone, to recollect her thoughts, to sleep in silence and quiet, to not think about what she had been through. She needed clean sheets, and to be by herself in the dark a while, with no proximity to any other person.

"Emily, of course it's okay. It's what I had intended. The spare room is set up and ready, and I'll be down the hall if you need me."

She nodded and glanced at him, tentatively offering the best she could: "I'm sorry. It's not that-"

"I know," he said, "I know that you do trust me. But you need time. You don't need me near you. It won't help."

She was both glad and impressed that he could read her so easily. "Yeah," she said quietly, "That's pretty much it."

"And that's okay," he said. "I'm not going to rush you. I don't care how long it takes, I'm here only to help you," he reiterated softly, anxious to have her realise that she wasn't alone, but that he wasn't pressing her either.

"Thanks," she said gratefully.

Within ten minutes, she was stumbling into the bed in the spare room. She had never been here before, it had always been his bed she slept in, with him close by, keeping her safe. But his warmth and safety wouldn't help her; it would only remind her of the hands in the dark, roaming her legs and arms, striking fear into her heart.

He knocked on the door softly and then opened it, checking to make sure that she was okay before he went to catch some much needed sleep for himself.

He settled into the duvet quickly, and his head sank into the pillow. His muscles relaxed and he was ready for sleep. But he found himself thinking about Emily. He had seen the wounds on her shoulders and neck, the cut on her head, the desolate lash marks across her back. It disgusted him that anyone could inflict such harm. As he had once said, deep down, everyone is capable of terrible things. What it is and where it starts from, he still wasn't sure.

And it hurt so damn much because he adored her. He worshipped the ground she walked on. She understood him the way nobody else ever had; and he was the same. Just a few minutes earlier, he had been able to tell what she was thinking. It seemed almost irrelevant that she hadn't spoken aloud. He knew what she was saying, he understood that. And it hurt him inside that she couldn't bear to lie with him. But externally, and in his head, logically, he knew the reasons. She did trust him; but the memory was just too fresh.

He felt himself drifting off and he ignored the tick of the clock on the wall as he fell into sleep. He could hear a car or two passing on the road outside- people from local hospitals on shift work coming home, or late night partiers with a designated driver- but he pushed the sound of the flashing tires against the road out of his head too. When he was finally relaxed enough, he fell asleep.

He could still hear the various ticks and tocks of the house at night, the creaks and moans that he could never hear during the day. On occasion, a flash of light from the road came through the window and pushed through the curtains, and he heard the trees rustling in the soft wind every few minutes.

And then there was an earth shattering screech of paralysing fear.

His eyes snapped open.

And the scream came again, desperate, loud, terrified.

He pulled his body up in a second and fled the room, running down the hall at top speed.

***

She was sitting up in bed, screaming fit to burst, her eyes tightly shut, her fists clamped in the duvet, sweat matting her hair to her forehead, tears rolling down her cheeks. Even in her half asleep state, she was absolutely paralysed with fear. Aaron belted across the room at speed, not even bothering to snap on a light. He reached the bed in one stride and immediately, he reached out for her, grasping her clammy arms and talking above her consistent screams.

"Emily! Open your eyes! Open them! Emily, it's me! It's me! You know me, it's me!"

She tried desperately to pull away from him, her eyes still tightly shut. Her arms flailed and some of her old strength caught him by surprise as she viciously lashed out. Her fist collided with his face, and he felt the drip in his nose that told him it was bleeding. She lashed out again, her hands beating against his chest, her nails flailing and scratching at his face, burning his skin as she tore it in her terror. She kicked her legs frantically, slightly winding him as he knelt onto the bed to get at her. Her head thrashed and her hand pumped against his arm, stinging him moderately, leaving a mark of a bruise to come on his skin. Still, he tried to reach for her, constantly calling her name, begging her to open her eyes, trying to pull her closer to him.

"Jesus, Emily, it's me, it's Aaron! Please! It's Aaron!!"

And her eyes opened, even though her fists lashed out one last time, catching him roughly across his jaw. His hands were fast, and when her eyes opened, he quickly clasped her fingers in his own, his heavy breathing joining hers as they stared at each other in the sudden silence of the night.

And then the dam broke. A torrent of tears rushed down her face and she pulled her arms from him, tightening herself into a ball on the bed, her arms wrapping around her knees as she rocked backwards and forwards.

He needed to comfort her, and so he threw caution to the wind and lay down behind her, tightening his arms around her own, his strong warmth managing to calm her slightly. She was enclosed, yes; but she was enclosed with safety.

She could feel his head pressed softly against hers, and she could feel his body against her back. There was a sense of hurt, but it wasn't bothering her at that moment. She just felt safe, knowing he was there, knowing he was right there next to her, protecting her from anything that might try to find her. Aaron delicately moved one arm back to his face, wiping the blood away from his nose, and he immediately returned it to her shaking arm as she cooled into a mess of shudders and shivers, tears still rolling.

When she felt his hand tenderly grasp her wrist, she looked down at the familiar fingers and saw blood. She stretched herself out slightly and turned her body to face him, thankful that he kept his arms swept around her as she moved. It was sore- in fact it hurt like hell- but she was almost thankful for the pain. It meant that she was okay; her dream had been just that, a dream.

"What happened," she croaked, "What happened to you?"

She was still half breathless, but her screams had subsided into tears and sadness. Why was he bleeding? She felt so weak to be in such a state right in front of him, but even as her legs extended and brushed against his, she felt warm somehow. Like it didn't matter.

"You hit me Em. When I tried to wake you up, you hit me. I'm sorry."

She inhaled and exhaled quickly a few times- maybe a bit too quickly- and felt the beginnings of a panic attack rising. He saw it coming, and he reached an arm to her face, moving her hair from her eyes and forehead, granting her more room to breathe. When he tried to pull away a little bit though, she stopped him, and instead gripped an arm tightly in his t shirt. "Don't move," she whispered.

"Okay," he agreed softly, and brushed her hair back, stroking it gently, his fingers pushing against her head as she settled against him somewhat, finally calming down.

"I'm sorry," she said, "I'm sorry I hurt you. I'm sorry I woke you, I-"

"Shhh," he shushed her gently, his hand strolling lower to ever-so-softly brush against her back, his other hand fixing itself at the edge of her neck, tipping against the top of her spine, holding her as close as he dared. Her head bent against his chest and her eyes flickered shut again. She was still crying, and she didn't appear to be able to stop. She was quiet about it, but he was no fool.

"You don't need to tell me," he said, "I'm still going to be here," he added, "But if it helps, you can say anything at all."

"Did you know that he raped them? And strangled them when he was done?" She asked blankly.

"Yeah," he said stoically, trying not to focus his rage at that thought on her. If he had been given more time, he knew that it was well within his power to kill Thomas Randolph with his own bare hands.

"He was so close. I could feel him," she murmured against his chest, her body tensing as she recalled it.

"You don't have to tell me," he reiterated. "All you have to do is know that you're not on your own."

"Mmm-hmm," she said vaguely as she inhaled his scent. She wished that he, of all people, did not have to see her like this. But it seemed that she was wrong. He was probably the only man in the world she could face being near at a time like this.

"Emily, if I could have gotten there sooner, I-"

"You would have gotten there. I know. I had started to think that you never would," she admitted to him softly, ashamed that she had ever doubted him. His eyes flickered and he forced the sadness back. He had let her down. He had let her down in the worst way possible, and she had almost died for it.

"Oh Jesus," he muttered against her hair, "I let you down."

She didn't reply for a minute, and then she moved slightly, arching her back a little to curve herself upward, allowing her to look into his eyes. His hand moved to the very bottom of her back where it rested cautiously. She didn't seek to move it though, she just left another tear fall onto his shirt and then she inhaled through her nose to achieve some calm.

"You saved my life," she said plainly, "You could never leave me down."

He barely believed her, but he said nothing in return. He watched her lower herself again, and he admired her courage. It must have hurt her to be so honest, but she had done it anyway. He watched her as she turned her back on him, but before three seconds had passed, she reached back for his hand and pulled it closer to her midriff. He moved over so that he was lying behind her again, spooning her gently, keeping her warm, safe, wanted.

Her fingers clutched his in the dark of the room, and she could feel his knees pushing against hers. His head was near her own and she knew that if she turned, she would be able to look him in the eye. But she didn't. She didn't need to.

She closed her eyes and allowed sleep to take her. Despite her prevailing terror, she was sure that he would be there. She was sure that he wasn't going to leave her. She was so sure that she was willing to not even ask him.

And he did stay with her. Not only that, he forced himself to stay awake all night, to make sure that she would never again suffer so much in her dreams.


	17. Chapter Sixteen What Will Survive

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything Criminal Minds related. Characters are merely borrowed and will be put back later. ;)**

**Suffer and Save**

**Chapter Sixteen- What Will Survive**

"_To prove our almost instinct, almost true: What will survive of us is love."_

_Philip Larkin_

She moved cautiously, carefully, only too aware of where she was as she opened her eyes. She could feel his hand still at her stomach, touching tentatively against her shirt. She could feel his leg pushed unintentionally against hers, and she could sense his chest tipping slightly against her back as he breathed quietly.

It was light outside, and her eyes flickered toward the curtains. She was lying on the bed, but there were no blankets around her. Nonetheless, the trickle of warm yellow light through the room seemed to come to a rest on her ankle, and she felt both warm and safe. The night before, she had felt haunted and lost. It was killing her, because she knew how strong she was. She knew that she could compartmentalise like nobody's business, but at right this moment, that made no difference. She simply had to face that this was going to be hard.

She moved again and lifted her head slightly. Her neck ached mildly, but she felt relaxed and heated. She reached for the hand on her midriff and interlocked the fingers with her own. She nearly had a heart attack when they moved willingly against hers, and then she caught her breath and sighed.

"You stayed awake," she half whispered. Aaron smiled mildly against her hair and muttered his agreement.

"All night?" she asked, slightly incredulous.

"Mmmhmm," he murmured against her neck, "All night."

She didn't say anything for a bit.

"Why?" she whispered.

"Because I wanted to be here when you woke up."

"Why?" she asked again.

"Because I want to see you all the time."

Why?" she asked, her smile widening as confidence returned to her. She could still feel his breath on her neck, and then it was closer to her ear.

"Because I love you," he said quietly. His voice was slightly hoarse, and the gravelly tone sent a tiny shiver down her spine.

"I don't know how," she said softly.

"What do you mean?" he replied, thinking that even with the cut on her head, her face would always be stunningly beautiful.

"I look awful," she said, "I know I do."

"You couldn't look awful if you tried," he said, a little louder this time.

She struggled lightly again him, and he immediately allowed her to move, aware that the last thing he wanted was to close her in. Before he knew it, she was looking right at him, and he noticed immediately the bruises on her cheek had gone down today. Her skin looked beautiful despite the blemishes she was so fixated on.

"You're beautiful," he said, his hand reaching to her face, where he pushed some of her hair away and left his thumb lingering on her cheekbone.

She blushed a small bit- _why_ did he have that effect on her?- and then smiled slightly.

"Did you sleep well?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said, "Because of you. But you needn't have stayed awake all night..."

"But I wanted to," he said, smiling at her. She was at her most comfortable right here, with his left arm wrapped around her waist, and his right hand on her cheek, delicately brushing against her skin.

"I wanted to," he said, assuring her that it was entirely his choice. "Do you want breakfast?"

She nodded slightly, feeling tiredness coming back to her, but she was determined to make it out of bed and to the breakfast table with him.

"I'll make the food," he said, "And you come get it when you're ready, okay?"

She felt him move his arms away from her, and she found that she wanted him to stay. But she let him go, not wanting to lean on him anymore than she had to. When he was out of the room, she tentatively got to her feet and stretched her arms slightly, not too far for fear of hurting herself. She went to the bathroom and splashed water on her face, looking at herself in the mirror and feeling a bit better. The bruising was going down, and her face was no longer swollen. Within a few days, her face at least would be healed.

As she made her way downstairs, she could smell the food cooking, the toast in the toaster, and the eggs on the stove. It had not really surprised her that he made good breakfast. It was one of the reasons she most liked staying at his house. On her own, she would eat porridge or granola, something quite generally disgusting and healthy. But when she was with him, she always found herself with more time to relax and enjoy her meal.

She walked into the warm kitchen and looked at the Sunlight flooding through the window. There was a slight breeze, but generally, she felt stronger today than she had yesterday. So she sat at the table and watched him cooking. On occasion, he glanced at her- partially to make sure she was okay, and partially to let her know that he was still with her.

And when he served her the food, it was warm and welcoming. She felt as though she had arrived home, and she relished the comfort. The nurses at the hospital had told him that she would need some TLC. He was more than happy to provide it for her.

When they were finished, he lifted the plates from the table and ignored her protestations that she could help. "No," he said, "I still like my dishes and you're still sleepy."

She appreciated him being there, even for something as trivial as the plates. They both knew that he didn't care about the dishes and that she was now woken up perfectly. But neither of them went any further with the gentle rebuttal he had served her with.

This was why, when he came back to the table and walked around her to reach the rest of the crockery, she was amazed to hear a crash. He had knocked the other plate from the table, and it smashed hard against the floor.

She attempted to turn to find out if he was okay, but he put his hands softly on her shoulders and forced her to sit still.

"It's fine," he said, "I'm sorry I dropped it, but you're bleeding. It's fine, but we need to check it."

"Okay," she said slowly, conscious that she could feel nothing other than the usual pain and a small amount of added discomfort. She was also hyper aware that he had gotten enough of a fright that he had dropped the ware. It wasn't a regular thing to do, and she was quite frightened by what might have shocked him so much.

"Is it that bad?" she asked frankly, "And tell the truth."

"It's not that bad, I don't think. I knocked the plate because I wasn't paying attention."

She didn't fully believe him, but when he came to stand in front of her and took her hands to help her up, his face was calm and he looked entirely normal, which was something of a help. She stood with him and allowed him to lead her to the bathroom, where he pulled a first aid kit from the cupboard and filled the sink with cool water.

"I'm sorry Em, but you need to take the shirt off."

She couldn't say anything, but she nodded nonetheless. She could trust him. He wasn't going to wince and flinch, was he?

She allowed him to move closer and then she felt his fingers brushing against the skin on her hip. "Tell me if it hurts," he said, "And I'll stop straightaway."

But she didn't stop him. She felt his hands slide underneath the shirt and press against her fragile skin as he lifted it up, and finally it was over her head. He had seen her naked possibly hundreds of times before, but nonetheless, she lifted her arms to cover her chest. Next, she allowed him to sweep her hair from her back over her shoulder, and it balanced softly against her collar bone. He turned her, facing her away from the mirror, and looked at her back. He had seen the blood on the t shirt, which she had not been able to see. And it had frightened him. It was a reminder of what she had seen and felt, and he hated that. He had been so focused on it that he simply brushed the plate from the table accidentally.

The doctors had told him that the wounds stood a possibility of reopening, but he hadn't known that it would look so bad. The blood was smeared across her skin again, and the marks showed no signs of healing just yet. His beautiful Emily would be scarred for life.

He pulled a cloth from a low cupboard and moistened it in the sink. "Tell me if it hurts," he murmured. He dabbed it gently against her skin, washing the worst of the blood away, cooling her too hot back and helping the healing process. They had told him, when this happened, that he should try to cover it, and he pulled bandages from the box until he found the wad of cotton gauze he needed. It would cover the worst of it, and hopefully it would help. He pressed it against her back and secured it with medical tape, making sure that he attached he tape only to unbroken, healthy skin. When he was finished, he put his hands back on her shoulders.

"Done," he said. Emily knew that she found herself nodding a lot lately, so instead she croaked her thanks.

She was beginning to wonder what she would wear now, but he already had an answer.

"I'll be back in one second," he said, and he disappeared. Emily waited for him in the bathroom, looking to the sink where the cloth lay, blood stained and sad seeming; a mark of her experience. A part of it she had never wanted to share with him.

When he came back, he was holding an old shirt of his; one she often wore to bed when she stayed with him, and one she adored. She smiled when she saw it and immediately questioned in her head why they hadn't thought of it before. She realised that she was shaking from the shock of the morning's minor emergency, and he noticed immediately that she would also likely be cold from standing barefoot on the bathroom tiles.

He helped her with the sleeves, delicately moving the cotton over her arms and across her back, before standing in front of her and pushing her hands away to tie the buttons himself. Her fingers were cold and rather unresponsive; she didn't protest at all when he did a fast job of what, for her, would have been a problem.

"Thank you," she whispered softly, brushing a tear away with one of the sleeves. He lifted her chin up and shook his head. "Nothing to be thanking me for."

He walked with her back to the kitchen, where he watched her move to the back garden and the swing seat she loved so much. He gave her some time alone, finishing clearing the table, sweeping the plate pieces from the floor and dumping them unceremoniously into the corner bin. And then when he was done he wandered into the yard and glanced across at her as she sat on the swing, tentatively rocking back and forth. The sun was lighting up her face and there was, for some reason, not as strong a breeze out here. So he walked a little closer and eventually he was right next to the seat.

"C'mere," she said, her eyes glancing across the backyard. He did as he was told and sat next to her.

And she surprised him by moving close to him, tucking her legs under her and leaning her head against his shoulder, closing her eyes in the heat. He settled an arm around her and held her lightly, glad that she was no longer shaking, but still worried about her.

With her eyes closed and him watching her (whether she noticed that or not), she opened the highest tied button on the shirt, revealing more of her pale skin to him. He wasn't sure what she was doing, but he said nothing for the time being. He watched her as she reached for his free hand and found it with her own, dragging it closer to her. He allowed her to take control of him, and watched her as she slipped his palm through the gap in her shirt, resting his warm hand against her left breast, where he could quite clearly feel her heart beating quickly.

"Em..."

"Ssssh," she murmured against his shoulder as she held his hand there, "It beats faster when you're here."

And then she really surprised him. After about thirty seconds of him quietly sitting there, feeling and listening to her heartbeat drum through his fingers, she knelt up, elevating herself above him on the seat. He watched as she delicately (though not without effort) lifted her leg and slipped it over his own, until finally she was able to rest herself on his lap, looking right at him.

"Kiss me," she whispered, her eyes watering.

"Em... Take your time," he half begged. He desperately wanted to kiss her, but he knew that this wasn't right. He couldn't take advantage of a passing moment of desire.

"Kiss me," she said, "And I won't taste him anymore. Please."

He looked in her eyes for a few seconds, and saw a kind of fire there. She was determined to move Thomas Randolph out of her life, and he didn't want to stop her.

"Kiss me," she whispered again, her face close to his "And make him go away."

So he kissed her. He barely had to move. All he did was lean across that tiny space between them and push his lips against hers tenderly, kissing some of the horror away.

She had missed this. She felt him kiss her a second time, and then a third, and though each time she was faced with doubts and feelings of hatred, those were all directed at Thomas Randolph. The man she loved was right in front of her, and he was a better healer than anything she had ever taken before.

She kissed him back fervently, but slowly, pushing her tongue into his mouth lazily, her fingers finding his hair and deepening their kiss. It was long and deep and passionate. In the minutes they sat there, Emily felt some tension slip away. She felt some small spark in her stomach, a little moment of desire coming to life and making her eyes bright behind her eyelids.

When his hands came to rest on the small of her back, she simply kissed him harder, and when his fingers found their way to her neck and into her hair, she groaned slightly. How could she have forgotten this?

For his part, he was disappointed when she stopped and pulled away. And then she grabbed his hand again and pushed it through that same gap in her shirt, to the same position, where her heart was beating faster and stronger.

"See?" she said, "It's stronger when you're here."

And then she kissed him again very softly, her lips brushing against his, before she fixed her arms around his neck and hugged him. He slipped his arms around her back, but he didn't hurt her. Occasionally, he brushed his fingers through her hair, and once or twice she kissed him again softly. All the while, they were silent.

And they sat like that for a very long time.


	18. Chapter Seventeen Doubt

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything Criminal Minds related. Characters are merely borrowed and will be put back later. ;)**

**A/N: Spoilers ahead for episodes 4.18 "Omnivore", 4.29 "House on Fire", 4.20 "Conflicted", 4.21 "A Shade of Grey", 4.22 "The Big Wheel", 4.23 "Roadkill" and 4.24 "Amplification". Just to let you all know. :D**

**Suffer and Save**

**Chapter Seventeen- Doubt**

"_There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt. Doubt separates people. It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations. It is a thorn that irritates and hurts; it is a sword that kills."_

_Buddha_

For a little while, nothing was said, and the sunlight washed across the garden, livening the flowers and pushing the dew away from the plants. It was still early, and though Emily didn't know it, Aaron had yet to talk to Strauss.

For the most part, the entire team had managed to avoid Strauss as often as possible since her own abduction- and she entirely managed to not bother them, letting them do their jobs, even if it did happen sometimes in the most unorthodox ways. She just kept her mouth shut and moved on.

But Aaron had a sneaking suspicion that she wasn't exactly going to be entirely sympathetic when he got to her office. The fact was that the team had suffered a lot recently. George Foyet, once captured, had escaped, injuring Morgan in the process, and there was a constant elephant in the room when he came up in conversation: What if, one day, he came back for them? It didn't truly bear thinking about, but the thought was never far from them. Foyet was still very much so a threat.

And then there were the horrific arson attacks by Tommy Wheeler, who had destroyed a cinema, a local gym, and a bar, all in a fruitless attempt to reunite himself with his sister. Aaron knew that Strauss had barely held her tongue when she found out that Garcia had been actively involved in the work of a field agent, rather than merely as an analyst. It rankled even more with Strauss that Aaron had vehemently stood up for Garcia and even thanked her for a job that had been exceptionally well done.

And then there was Adam Jackson. Reid still went to talk to Amanda from time to time, to see if Adam would ever rejoin the real world. But it seemed not to be, and Strauss didn't like the fact that one of her agents was so involved personally in the investigation. Though usually Aaron would agree with her, it was soothing for Reid to try to work the puzzle out; it helped him.

And what about Danny Murphy? A young boy who had knowingly and sadistically killed his brother and stuffed toy plane parts into his mouth post mortem. Aaron would never forget the image of Emily explaining to his parents that the son they were trying to protect was a psychopath, who felt nothing at all but hatred. Strauss had balefully noted that Danny would one day likely be back on their list of offenders- he would kill, it was merely a question of when.

Sighing slightly, he felt Emily move against him and she pulled her head back and glanced at him.

"What's the matter?" she asked, looking slightly concerned.

"I have to go talk to Strauss. And the team are due back in work tomorrow. So I have to do it today."

"Oh," she replied, quite thoroughly unsure of what else to say. Strauss had become quite difficult to second guess lately. "What do you think she's going to say?" she pressed.

"I have no idea," he replied honestly, "But I have to get it over with eventually."

He thought again to their most recent cases. There had been Vincent. Strauss wasn't too impressed with the fact that the team didn't get to him in time to stop him attacking some local muggers. It had resulted in a mountain of paperwork and a lot of painful phone calls with local police forces.

And what about the happenings in Oregon? Ian Coakley had destroyed several lives before taking his own- something that had bothered Strauss. Aaron had deliberately put his life in danger to prevent Coakley taking his last victim, and that went against protocol. On top of that, Coakley had driven his car over a cliff rather than be apprehended, which had been difficult to live with for the entire team.

Just a few weeks later, the worst had come. Reid and the Anthrax attacks. It had been a nightmare start to finish, and yet again, tensions with the military had come into play. Strauss had been extremely annoyed that team carelessness had led to Reid being in the house alone; Aaron had argued that had Reid not moved ahead by himself, Morgan too would have been in danger. Reid had at least spared that, and he had been fine after a few days recovery.

It grated on Strauss, Aaron knew that. And he had an odd feeling that this would be the end of their precarious peace deal. Strauss was, without a doubt, going to find something to moan about.

"I have to go," he whispered to Emily.

"I know," she said softly, "I'll be here when you get back."

She kissed his cheek very softly, and moved from him, settling herself on the end of the swing seat and looking out at the garden as he got ready to go to the office. Just before he left, he came back outside the door to her and made sure she was alright.

"Don't stay out for too long," he said, "You need warmth."

"I'll go inside in a few minutes," she promised, resisting the urge to roll her eyes at him playfully. He wandered back to her and cupped her face gently. "I'll be back as soon as possible," he said, only too aware that she had not yet been on her own in any house.

"I know," she said, "And I'll be just fine."

He half ran to his car, hoping that he would be at the office and home before he really had time to think about it. He just didn't want her to be alone for too long- and he also didn't want to be alone with Strauss for too long.

***

When he arrived at the office, Hotch inhaled slowly and knocked on the door before opening it and greeting Strauss.

"You asked to see me, when I got back," he said plainly.

"Take a seat," she said, and unlike some of the past times he had been in the office, he sat opposite her and waited for her to continue.

"How is Agent Prentiss?" she asked- the rudimentary question he had expected. She had asked him the same of Morgan, after the Reaper's Attack, and of Reid, after the Anthrax case.

"She's improving by the day," he said, "She'll need some time off to recover, but generally speaking she's doing very very well."

It wasn't a lie. She really was doing very well, there was no doubt about that.

"I'm not sure that she should return to this job," Strauss said carefully.

And so they came to it; the real reason she had summoned him.

"I'm not sure that I understand," he said mildly.

"I seem to recall," She muttered, "That Agent Reid developed quite a number of problems after he was imprisoned by Tobias Henkel. And you're no fool. You know the amount of leave I had to take after my own incident."

"But Emily has no addiction problem. Neither is she trying to compartmentalise her way out of this. She's facing this head on. She will take leave; as much of it as she needs. But she will be fit and able for work sooner than you might think," he said.

"I'm not convinced," Strauss said. "I believe that at very least, I can reassure you that I am not going to fire Agent Prentiss. I owe you that much. But I do think that a probation period is necessary," she pushed.

"I don't see how that would help to relieve any stress she might feel on her return," he said, stressing the idea that she would return without a doubt.

"I don't intend to stress her. I intend for her to know that there are no expectations of her. If she feels that it's too much, the FBI would rather that she not fight on the way, say, Elle Greenaway did."

He saw where she was going with this. She had a point, but it was a point that had nothing whatsoever to do with Emily.

"You don't doubt her at all?" Strauss questioned, almost mockingly.

"No," he said, "Never."

"Even though she was not handpicked by you to work at the BAU?"

"That's irrelevant," he said, "She's excellent at her job, like the rest of my team, and regardless of who chose them, I wouldn't doubt them."

He had her beaten on this point. There was no way she could force him into doubting Emily. But still, she could force Emily into a probationary position at the BAU.

"The Probation period will go ahead nonetheless," she said.

"Fine," he said, "But it's a waste of your time. Emily will come back, and she'll return to her job. She'll do it as well as she always did. I can assure you of that."

"Indeed," Strauss said coolly, "We'll see."

Aaron moved to stand up, but she stopped him.

"Might I ask where Agent Prentiss is now?" Strauss enquired.

"She's at my house. I'm taking care of her."

"The rest of the team are due back to work tomorrow," she said. "I expect you to be here- all of you. Your mind can't be focused elsewhere. We have quite the backlog of cases and calls to answer and consult for."

"I'll be here," he said coldly, and left before she could make any more pseudo helpful remarks.

***

When he reached home, he didn't immediately find her. She wasn't on the swing seat, where he had expected she would still be. He had been gone just over 45 minutes, nothing more or less.

He walked through the house to find her, and eventually located her in the bedroom.

She was lying on his side of the bed, wrapped in his old shirt, her legs tucked under her as she lay in a foetal position. She looked as though she was trying to protect herself, and when he circled to face her, she was awake and looked straight at him. She had taken the sweatpants off and he could see the crude bruises on her legs. He ignored them, knowing that she had likely not intended him to see.

"You okay?" he asked softly.

"Yeah," she said, "I just needed somewhere familiar. The house was really quiet..."

He sat next to her and eventually lay back on the bed near her. He was relatively unsurprised when she unfurled herself and meandered her way closer to him, resting her head against his chest when his arm came up to meet her hip and hold her close to him, taking comfort in the bare fact that she was there. He ran his finger automatically against the line of her panties, his fingers lingering on her skin as she settled against him, feeling more at ease about herself again.

"What did she say?" Emily murmured against his shirt.

"She wants you to go on a probation period," he said half heartedly, sighing tiredly, the long night he had spent awake now catching up on him.

"Oh," Emily whispered. "What did you say?"

"I told her it was a waste of time," he said, "That you'd be back to work before too long."

"What if I'm not?" she asked suddenly, his hand tightening in his shirt.

"You will be," he reassured. "I know that you will be."

"You don't doubt that? At all?" she asked, incredulous that anyone could have such faith in her.

"Never," he said honestly.

"But why?" she questioned.

"You've never given me reason to doubt you before. So I won't doubt you now."

She didn't say anything else, but she stayed with him on the bed, her hand loosening and her head settling into a relaxed poise on his body. She felt him drop to sleep, and before long, her own eyes closed. As his chest heaved under her, she felt a warm wave of contentedness pass through her.

He didn't doubt her.


	19. Chapter Eighteen Masquerade

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything Criminal Minds related. Characters are merely borrowed and will be put back later. ;)**

**A/N: I may not be updating tomorrow. I just started a new job and things are pretty hectic right now. But then again, you guys might get lucky and I might manage to force a chapter out. ;)**

**And here we have a brand new case and some character progression- at last, because I think you must all be quite sick of this story!**

**Suffer and Save**

**Chapter Eighteen- Masquerade**

"_Masquerade! Paper Faces on Parade  
Masquerade, hide your face so the  
World will never find you..."_

_From "The Phantom of the Opera"_

Almost three weeks had passed, and Emily had returned to work. This was, in fact, her first day back on the job. She had faced the news of her probation period relatively well, and had dedicated herself to getting as well as she could in as little time as she could. Aaron privately felt that she was needlessly rushing herself, but she pushed on regardless, quietly and solidly determined to prove Erin Strauss wrong.

She would come back, and she would do her job exactly as she always had: to perfection.

And so as she sat in the passenger seat next to Aaron, her face healed, most of the bruising on her body cleared and a healthy glow on her face, she considered the past few weeks. They had been Hell. Day and night, she had consistently fought away the tears and told herself that she was alright. That she would be alright.

When Aaron had gone to work to be Agent Hotchner, she had cleaned the house and she had cooked dinner for them when he got home; which he always seemed to do on time when she was waiting for him. She caught herself thinking, on more than one occasion, that Haley had been quite demented to not give him more of a chance to prove himself.

"I've been thinking," he said to her across the car as he carefully turned a ridiculously dangerous corner.

"Go on," she encouraged, not totally focusing on what he was saying to her. For some reason, she was a little nervous about the return to work. She knew that they had only had one field case while she had been on leave, but nonetheless, she felt she had missed something, even though she hadn't actually missed anything other than a successful and textbook case.

That in itself had bothered her. Maybe they didn't need her at all? Should she even be burdening them by returning to work at the BAU? Surely they could work just as well without the extra member...

"Haley is due to take the house in about eight weeks," he said to her, and she nodded absent-mindedly.

"Oh yeah, I had forgotten about that."

"I think I've found somewhere, a nice apartment. It's close to your place," he said, and she glanced at him. "But it won't be the same," she said.

However, that wasn't quite where he was going with this.

"The apartment doesn't bother me so much. It's a nice place, you'll like it."

"So what's the matter?" she asked him, finally tuning into the conversation.

"I was kind of hoping that maybe you might want to move in."

Her head snapped up and she looked at him very directly. "Are you serious?"

He instantly realised that this had been a bad idea. She wasn't ready. He almost kicked himself for bringing it up in the first place, but she had improved so much that he had felt she was ready. Maybe she needed to assert her independence a little more.

Even though he knew that the three times she had returned to her own apartment to collect her things with Garcia, she had come away each time feeling exceptionally upset, and each time she had cried as he held her hands and tried to comfort her.

"It's a big move," he said, "It's too much right now, I'm sorry, I-"

"I want to."

"Pardon?" He questioned.

"I want to move in with you," she said. "I've been trying to come up with a way of telling you... I'm thinking of selling the condo. I loved it while I lived there. But right now, I'm happier elsewhere."

He pulled the car into the FBI parking lot and parked in his usual place. "You're serious? I'm really not pushing you, I'm not trying to force you into anything..."

"I know. But even outside of the fact that I want to move in with you, it makes practical sense."

He nodded at her and smiled. Typical for Emily: Logistics took over when he just wanted to hug her.

They stepped from the car and she came around the side to hold his hand. They had a few minutes yet before they were due inside, so he put his hand on her hip and looked at her properly.

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure," she confirmed, smiling up at him. Her smile had returned properly, and she was being open and honest again.

"Thank God," he said, "I was terrified you'd say no..."

She smiled at him even as his head came down to hers and he kissed her in the middle of the parking lot, with one or two workers watching (one of them rather disapprovingly) as they went inside.

When they parted, Emily considered that the romantic side of their relationship still needed work- there were times when she felt uneasy, and she had not yet been able to face having sex. Yet. She had a feeling that each day it came closer. And he was being more patient than she had thought he could be. Hell, he was being more patient than she was.

***

When they arrived in the office, Morgan was the first to greet them with a satisfied "There's our girl!"

Emily smiled at him and waved at Reid while JJ walked across the floor to greet her with a warm hug. "Penelope will be glad you're here. She's getting sick of baby talk," JJ said happily. Reid too came over for a hug and told her, in a soft whisper, that he was there for her if she needed him. She thanked him quietly and smiled at Rossi as he came toward her to hug her too.

She was feeling much more comfortable around people, and it was showing through. She was relaxed with the BAU; they were her family.

JJ turned to Hotch straightaway. "We have a call."

"Where?"

"New York," she said, "And it's not a nice one either."

Immediately his thoughts flew to Emily, standing just three feet away smiling at the people she loved most. As far as he knew, she had barely told her mother what had happened.

"We'll meet in the BAU Room in five minutes, he said. Can you go get Garcia?" he added, and JJ nodded and headed to Penelope's office, handing Hotch the file as she left.

He pulled it open and was instantly moderately horrified. These types of cases were the worst.

"Guys, we need to go," he said, pointing them toward the BAU Room and then leading the way. They all followed half casually, mostly just glad that Emily was back to them and that she looked so well.

When they were approaching the room, Garcia scampered down the hall with JJ to meet Emily head on, throwing her arms around the brunette. "I'm so glad you're back!" she called with glee, "I've missed your jokes and the way you put Derek down!"

Morgan turned back at the door with a jokingly injured look on his face "Hey!" he mockingly reproached, and Garcia moved past him, sticking her tongue out and grinning. Emily had missed this fun, this laughter. She had had quiet, romantic and loving moments with Aaron, and he had lifted her mood on countless occasions over the past few weeks, but she definitely missed the family feeling that emanated from the BAU.

She took a seat next to Aaron and Morgan when she got to the table, and watched as JJ came into the room last, closing the door behind her and pushing a button on her remote control. The first picture flashed onto the screen and Emily grimaced.

"What is that?" Morgan asked.

"This is Julia Turner. She went missing on Wednesday and was found in her apartment on Friday morning when she didn't turn up to work two days in a row. She was found like this..." JJ said, and tried to push the mild nausea away in advance.

She pressed the button again and another picture came to the screen. Julia Turner's head had been twisted the entire way around. And a perfectly moulded replica of her face was pinned to the back of her head, giving her the grotesque appearance of a two headed man. It was as though the killer had simply placed a lot of putty over her face and waited for it to set. She had died, not as a result of the neck injury, but by asphyxiation.

"So..." Morgan started, "They're dead when he... when he pins it to them?"

"We're assuming so. It's messy. The autopsy report noted that there was evidence of sexual intercourse, but no commonly recognised sign of rape."

"Necrophilia," Rossi said drily. "I was hoping we'd not see another of those. Ever."

"Seems like it's our lucky day," Reid noted sadly, taking one of the files Hotch passed around to look at it more closely.

"Are there others, JJ?" Emily asked.

"One. Amelia White, a week ago. Also abducted on a Wednesday and found on a Friday."

"So there are plenty of connecting elements," Emily said. "Maybe it won't be as hard as the last tie to work this guy out."

"Hopefully," Hotch said, glancing across to her, and seeing her delving back into the work as capably as she had in the days before her own incident. She seemed fine.

"Wheels up in ten," he said, "We want to get this guy as quickly as possible."

And they dispersed, to pull files, find phones, pick up bags and grab coats, before crowding into the elevator to get to the hangar. Emily hung back on the pretence of finding a file, and told them to go ahead. Aaron half ran from his office to reach the elevator before seeing her and stopping.

"If you need to stay here," he said, "You can."

"I'm fine," she said. "I only stayed behind to reassure you. I'm fine."

"Okay," he said, well aware that he was fighting a losing battle. She was never going to admit otherwise, so he escorted her to the elevator in time to just catch the door with his foot, the two of them stepping in with another agent they didn't know.

And then before anyone could really think of it, they were in the air, heading for New York, and the desperate, horrific crimes in the city that would challenge Emily to the last.

"Let's talk about the standard," Hotch began.

"Victimology is standard," Reid said, "They're all brunettes, and they're all in their early 30s."

Immediately it stood out a mile that this was the same as last time... but Hotch stoutly ignored it.

"Right, what else?" he pressed them, knowing that they were all seeing the similarities he could see. None of them were blind or oblivious.

"So he asphyxiates them with the clay, makes a replica of their faces, which must surely take time, and then he has sex with them post mortem, at some stage breaking the neck and twisting it, fixing the mask to the head," Rossi thought aloud.

It sounded even more brutal when he said it, despite his careful selection of words.

"It seems like such a waste of time," Emily said, "To make the masks at all. The clay is painted to the right colour and there's some attention to detail."

"I guess he has time," Morgan said. "Once he's killed them, he has plenty of time to fix up what he needs. We need to know more about the clay- does it need time to dry?" He finished.

"And we need to know the order of the assaults, "Reid noted, "Otherwise it's hard to determine what the real MO is, and what's part of a signature."

Garcia, on the screen near Hotch's seat, talked to the team also. She was dreading this case. It was violent and bloody and she really hated violence and gore. Time after time, she had had to ask herself why she had ever taken this job.

"I'll get to work on the clay. Milla Baker is waiting in New York for you guys. She's the one who did the autopsy. She says she might have some details for you."

"Thanks Garcia," Hotch called, "And will you also go back in the system for murders incorporating signs or MO's like this? Maybe not all together, but there might be beginnings."

"Sure," she said.

"Why?" Reid asked, "Surely this is as specific we need."

"Yeah," Emily said, "But this is something that takes time to perfect. He needed to test his ideas out at some point. And these are very noticeable. Anything Garcia finds could point us in the right direction."

She sat back on the plane for the remainder of the flight, her stomach feeling uncomfortable. She was back at work, on a horrible case- and she was already feeling slightly ill. She compartmentalised it, determined that it would not affect her work.

She knew only too well that her career was riding on her performance here. Strauss needed to see that Emily was capable of working out her troubles.


	20. Chapter Nineteen Masquerade II

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything Criminal Minds related. Characters are merely borrowed and will be put back later. ;)**

**Suffer and Save**

**Chapter Nineteen- Masquerade II**

"_Masquerade! Every face a different shade!  
Masquerade! Look around -  
There's another mask behind you!  
Masquerade! Burning glances, turning heads . . .  
Masquerade! Stop and stare  
at the sea of smiles around you!"_

_From "The Phantom of the Opera"_

When they were sitting in the office, it immediately became clear that the local police chief didn't like the idea of the BAU invading his space and taking over his crime scenes. He had been less than welcoming; something the BAU were used to, but something they couldn't appreciate. It interrupted their jobs and meant they had to convince people of their capacity to work properly and efficiently. It was an added pressure to an already strenuous job. And with the added problem of Emily being on probation, there were many dark looks and shady faces in the room.

"You didn't keep the crime scenes are they were?" Hotch asked, half incredulous and trying to hide it. If the chief hadn't kept the crime scenes intact, he and his team had nothing to work with from them.

"There's one fresh one," The Chief replied, "But that's it. Won't that be enough?"

"When were the others cleared?" Morgan asked, interjecting briefly.

"This morning, just before you arrived," he replied shortly.

Morgan sighed mildly but said nothing critical. It was a rule of thumb that if you called the FBI, you made sure you had crime scenes to show them when they arrived. And it was, unfortunately, another rule of thumb that you didn't criticise the local officers. Generally speaking, they wouldn't know what they had allowed to slip through the new of law enforcement. But this was a mistake that bordered on foolish pettiness. Just because the Chief didn't trust the BAU, didn't mean that they couldn't help. He had, possibly, deliberately affected their investigation.

Not that they hadn't seen that before.

When Hotch returned to the team at the table, he kept his voice down as he relayed the information to them. They looked moderately annoyed, but they still had a job to do, so they pulled the photographs toward them and tried to make a profile from them.

Hotch took a seat next to Rossi and Emily as Reid started talking.

"I just got off the phone with the autopsy technician, Baker. She said that it looked as though the victims were first asphyxiated with the clay, and then the neck was twisted until it was entirely the wrong way around. She couldn't work out what happened next or why," he finished, glancing up at them, "You know, statistically," he continued, but Morgan raised a hand to stop him immediately.

"Hang on. They definitely died by asphyxiation?" Morgan asked.

"She seemed pretty sure," Reid replied, "But there was no way of being sure whether the neck injury was sustained before the sexual assault or vice versa."

"And that still doesn't explain the mask, which is obviously both part of the MO and the signature. He puts the clay over their faces to suffocate them, but he then decorates the mask the clay makes, and attaches it to the back of their heads- deliberately. He takes time to do it."

"Maybe he's saying they're two faced," Emily suggested quite suddenly, and all eyes were on her for a second as they came to terms with what she had just said.

"It makes sense," Hotch said, and nodded. "It means that we can limit his victimology somewhat. He only picks women that remind him of a certain woman."

"And likely one who betrayed him in some way," Emily added, "To say that he views her as two faced."

Rossi nodded along with this and added his own two cents, "None of that would usually indicate a necrophiliac though. So it's feasible that the necrophilia has either recently come to light, or he knew about it all along and didn't act on it. The urge got too much and he had to act it out."

"Sometimes, necrophiliacs drug their wives or girlfriends and have sex with them while they're unconscious," Reid noted, "So the same thing may have happened here."

"It's likely that the first woman he killed was his own girlfriend, but we can't be entirely sure of that," Rossi added, "Has Garcia found anything in those records yet? Any signs of this MO developing? Or this signature?"

Morgan picked up his cell phone and called Garcia, "Hey Baby Girl, you got anything on those results?" He put her on speakerphone and waited for her response.

"Nothing," she answered, "There's just no sign of this guy anywhere in the system at all. Can you narrow it down for me with anything?"

Hotch thought it through for a second and then he answered her, "The stressor is likely the wife or girlfriend leaving him or betraying him in some way. So that wouldn't be in the record. Look for necrophilia related murders in the past few months. He's not been active that long, and maybe in one of those files, you might locate something. We have very little to go on here Garcia, so you have to trawl."

"I'll find something," she said confidently. She had never not managed to find something before. When she hung up, Rossi turned to Morgan and asked the question that was on all of their minds.

"So we have no crime scene whatsoever?" He stated. It wasn't really a question.

"There's one, the most recent one. We could go and check it out, but I'm willing to bet that he's had people down there all day and yesterday contaminating it," Morgan answered somewhat despairingly. It was almost impossible to find a target at a crime scene if it had been interrupted. Everything seemed out of sync and off key, almost diluted somehow.

"I'll take Reid with me," Rossi said, "And we'll have a look around. If we find nothing, we find nothing. But it's worth a shot."

"I'll go with Emily to the other houses at least. If they're all the same type or class or house, we might be able to make a connection there. Morgan, you stay with JJ and try to find a link between the women. Garcia is busy with the other search, so extra hands can't hurt."

They all knew that in truth, though he was putting Emily in the field, he was keeping her from the undue horror of the case as best he could. It would look good for Strauss that she had not been stuck in an office, and it also kept her slightly removed from such a creepy case. She wouldn't thank him for it- or at least, not publicly.

With that, the entire team moved and headed to work. Morgan when with JJ to get files from the Chief, who was disinclined to give them, but generally speaking had no choice. He was disgustingly uncooperative, Morgan thought, and it bothered him hugely. Didn't he understand that while he was being so obstructive, other women were in danger?

Hotch jumped into a car with Emily and sped in the opposite direction to Reid and Rossi, who headed for the fresh crime scene. When they arrived there, it was worse than they had thought it would be. There was a vile smell in the room, a pervasive smell of death, compounded by the coppery tang of blood that filled the room, a result of the neck wound inflicted on the woman who had died here.

As they walked through, Reid checked the usual spots, but looked for something more. There was a theory running around in his head that he couldn't get rid of. It seemed so tremulously foreboding to think that a necrophiliac would invest such time in damaging a dead body; that was rare. It stank of something bigger, and he was constantly thinking that he was missing something. He left Rossi in the bedroom and continued to the ground floor and into the garden of the house. And there, finally, he found what he was looking for.

Emily and Hotch checked the other two houses. They were both middle class, normal, ordinary houses in quiet, suburban neighbourhoods. Nothing overt, nothing to make them stand out. To Hotch, it automatically meant that the unsub had selected these women especially. He had seen them before, or knew them well enough to track them. Usually, Emily had discovered, in these cases, the unsub worked with the women, or came into contact with them through profession. She was almost sure that Morgan and JJ would find a connector in their search, and though she barely spoke to Hotch in the car, she was feeling mildly better about what they were doing.

When they arrived back at the office, progress had been made. Reid was chattering nineteen to the dozen as he walked through the door, explaining some theory or another to Rossi, and Morgan and JJ had a list in front of them of feasible connectors between the women.

In the first place, they had all worked for the same company, a sales brokerage that had shut down about two months previously after suffering a lot of liquidity problems in an economic recession that roamed the entire world. Each of the three women had been connected to the company upon its closure, and none of the three had gone on to get another job.

This indicated to the team that the unsub had plenty of time to work out how the women worked and what their routines were. It would have been only too easy to get into their homes when they were out, and to lie in wait for them.

And then Reid was standing right next to Hotch, claiming that it was not an unsub they had to deal with.

It was two.

"Explain it to me again," Morgan said, wondering how the boy wonder had gotten from one sick puppy to two of them in just one visit to a partially ruined crime scene. Knowing though, that it was the genius Reid, he was also relatively unsurprised.

"I walked into the garden, and there were two sets of footprints. I called back to the station here, and the Chief admitted that his mean hadn't searched the house at all, and they had all gone in through the front door. Which means that our unsub, or rather, the unsubs, came in the back door and lay in wait for the women."

"We came to the same conclusion. He- they- snuck in and waited," Hotch said, Emily nodding in agreement.

"So we have two of them to find," Morgan said.

"And one of them is stronger than the other, the dominant one," Emily added. "Chances are that the necrophiliac isn't the stronger one, he doesn't have the literal strength of the other man, who is the more physically violent. He's the one who turns the heads and makes the masks. The necrophiliac is just there to take advantage, possibly."

"He's the one who likely works or worked near these women when they were at the brokerage. We need to trace all of the men there and check for criminal records- assault, attempted murder, nothing sexual, just brute force. Maybe aggravated battery. Most definitely would arouse suspicions everywhere," Hotch indicated to the now listening officers.

"If that's all true, how would he be hired for any job?" The Chief asked scornfully.

"The chances are that he has a job where no screening is done. He might be a janitor, or he might be something similar in that sector. It's even possible that he's an independent contractor used by the company more than once. It's very hard to pinpoint," JJ stated quietly.

"And the other guy," Emily added, addressing the other officers- the ones more likely to hear him out- "He'll be harder to trace. The chances of the dominant giving him up are unlikely. So we need to find him, or we need to connect someone to the dominant when we do find him. Otherwise we might not find him at all. The weaker man will be harder to find, and the stronger one will be less inclined to give up information," she finished.

"So where do we start?" asked one of the officers.

"We're going to give you some files each. You have to go through each of them in the system and search through the names and their individual records. There are hundreds here, and we don't have a particular way of narrowing it down, so you'll need to help our technician at Quantico with that," JJ said.

"And one more thing," Reid added, "We want to up the level of security on the streets, to keep an eye out. Particularly of women in the company who match the descriptions of the others attacked. So you'll also be out searching."

"Our girl at Quantico is going to deal with the files of the women in that company, she'll get it done fast, so your Chief will be making out a roster within the next hour that will keep you all on your feet all day. We need to find these guys sooner rather than later, because they won't stop until we stop them," Morgan added.

"What about the weaker guy?" the Chief asked, "Are we not looking for him at all?"

"We are," Hotch said coolly. "Our analyst is pulling files on necrophiliacs in this area. If she finds anything, we'll conduct interviews. But for the meantime, he's hidden, and less of a danger even so."

The chase was on. The chatter and buzz of talking began, and the station got to work to find the two unsubs they were now seeking.


	21. Chapter Twenty The Phantom

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything Criminal Minds related. Characters are merely borrowed and will be put back later. ;)**

**A/N: The new job is going very well, but I'm so tired! :D Either way, this is the next chapter, a day late again. :/ And it will have to do until Sunday, when I will post the next one. And it is a good one, I promise. Possibly the one some of you have been waiting for. :)**

**Thank you so much for your patience.**

**Suffer and Save**

**Chapter Twenty- The Phantom**

***

"_You alone can make my song take flight..  
Help me make the Music of the Night."_

_From "The Phantom of the Opera"_

***

The newspapers had begun to call him The Phantom, because the masks had somehow been leaked to the public. The Phantom might as well have truly been a ghost. Tracking him had proved almost impossible for the first few hours. Hotch had caught himself wondering what the public would say if they knew that the Phantom had a sidekick.

It had been an exceptionally long day already, and finally they were making progress. It had taken Garcia hours to trawl through the files she had started with that morning, and the local police force were doing their best with other files. The officers on the street had seen nothing suspicious or out of the ordinary, but Morgan knew that in truth, they were more likely to trust and listen to their Chief than they were to trust or listen to the BAU. He suspected that any suspicious behaviour that may have qualified, they might have let it slide somewhat, or they might have been less vigilant. It was frustrating, but he simply had no way to better that system. He, and the team, just had to get on with it.

And so when they had finally hit on a link, Hotch had been adamant that they follow it as quickly and efficiently as possible; quite frankly, he didn't want to be in New York for a minute longer than he had to be. Emily had already taken more breaks than was strictly necessary, and there had been moments when she simply had not been able to gather herself. They had long had a policy that losing it was okay, but the BAU could not let any outsiders see them lose it.

And she hadn't allowed anyone to see her as she struggled with the horror of what she had seen in the past day. She had simply left the building and gone for a short walk around the premises, or she had sat with one of the other members of the team and chatted with them (especially JJ) for just a few minutes to get herself back in check. None of the team commented on it. The moratorium on profiling one another still stood, but they noticed nonetheless that she was having a hard time.

Morgan had been working with Garcia over the phone, discussing with her the details of the women murdered so far. He tossed different search options to her and she tried them out. There were several connectors, and they were all sure that somewhere in there, was the right one.

"What about.... technical records?" Garcia asked him over the phone.

"As in, computer records for the company?" He asked, not quite sure what she was developing.

"Yeah. Here at the FBI, we have people contracted especially to fix our hardware when it breaks. They're specifically hired and forced to sign confidentiality agreements and everything. This business is a high tech one, and it has a lot of patented secrets and methods. Surely it might be something of the same," she said.

"So what's the company that services the hardware?" Morgan asked, trawling through files on the table as Garcia searched with her ever amazing software.

"It's called Tech Know," Garcia half yelled at him over the phone. She almost shuddered at the thought that such an innocent and corny company name hid the dangers of a serial killer in its grasp.

"Okay, how many employees do they have?" Morgan asked, beckoning Hotch and Reid closer. Rossi and Emily joined from the other side of the room and before long, Garcia was running details past them on speaker phone.

"Okay, so they have over 60 employees, about twenty of which fulfil the criteria we've set out in the profile," she said, her fingers tapping mercilessly at her keys.

"So we need to get there. Is their HQ close, Garcia?" Rossi asked loudly, and when Penelope answered, it was in the affirmative. "I'm sending the address to your PDAs," she said quickly, and before they knew what was going on, Emily was with Rossi and Hotch in a car, speeding towards the offices of Tech Know.

When they got there, it only took a few short questions to determined who they were looking for.

"Sure," the receptionist said almost immediately, "That sounds like Eoin McMahon."

"Where might he be?" Rossi asked, pushing the receptionist for more information.

"He was suspended without pay for three weeks, for sexual harassment of employees in the company. And just before that, he had been suspended without pay for two weeks. He's on his last chance. His next warning means he'll be sacked for sure," She said- and she sounded damn happy about it. Rossi immediately that she had more to say, and so he prodded Emily toward her while he spoke to Hotch at the side.

"We have his address. We can check there. He seems to take them during the night, so he might be there right now. The other one... he'll be harder to find," Rossi said pointedly, and Hotch nodded.

He was well aware that Emily fitted the description of the woman their strong unsub detested so much. They would simply have to keep her away from Eoin McMahon.

***

"Is there any other information you can give me about Mr McMahon?" Emily asked the receptionist gently, noting that her name was Polly, and that she was slightly shuddery.

"He- He tried to... he stalked me for a bit. And then when I complained to management, he called and sent letters... So I complained again and he was suspended. He turned up to my house about two months ago. He- He told me he loved me. He wanted to leave with me, to take me away. He was... He was very violent..."

Emily nodded understandingly, and after saying her goodbyes and thanking Polly profusely for her story, she returned to Hotch and Rossi.

"She's got brown hair. And she's in her 30s. She said that he stalked her, acted violently towards her. I think she was the first one. She rejected him, so he took it out on others," She said, sure that she was correct.

Hotch nodded at her and within seconds they were in the car again, on the way back to the station.

"Morgan, come with me to McMahon's house. Rossi and Reid will follow. If he's not there, we need to find out more about him. I'm leaving that with you and JJ, "Hotch directed to Emily. She nodded, half glad to be out of the line of fire for this one.

And within minutes, the sirens were screaming towards the house and Eoin McMahon was on his feet and rushing to the door, trying to get away. It took Morgan only a few seconds to catch him and tackle him, knocking him to the floor and holding him there, cuffing him and then pulling him to his feet, dragging him back to the station.

But even when he was there, he refused to tell them anything of the second man involved. He seemed surprised that the BAU knew the assaults were conducted by separate people, and refused to give up any information.

After thirty minutes of an interview, Hotch was aggravated and frankly, pissed off. He had had enough. He even yelled at McMahon to get him to talk, but there was nothing forthcoming. He left the interview room quite suddenly, and walked to Emily. "Tell me you found something," he said, half desperately.

"We might have something," she said softly, pushing a slip of paper into his hand. It was brushing on towards evening now, and Hotch took it tiredly looking at the picture imposed on it.

"Odd, isn't it?" Emily said. "He has no family, but he was in care when he was a child. This was the boy he spent most of his time with. We think that they've been operating together for quite some time."

"Where did you find this?" Hotch asked.

"His old care worker faxed it over. She's still in the business. She remembered him pretty well. Said he injured small animals and wet the bed until he was nine."

"So what's the other boy's name?" Hotch asked, delighted that she had found something useful.

"Thomas," she said, ignoring the similarity to the man who had abused her, and she looked him right in the eye to reassure him that she was alright. "I'm fine Aaron. It's just a name."

He nodded at her and took the page away to the interview room again, where he slammed it on the table and pushed Eoin McMahon for more details. He still got nothing. Emily wandered closer to the interview room, and before long, the Chief of Police came over and opened the door, stepping inside to speak with Hotch about overstepping his authority. As he pulled Hotch from the room, McMahon caught a glimpse of Emily, who locked eyes with him and didn't move from her spot.

Nobody was paying attention, and she walked closer to the room. As Rossi moved past with Morgan, trying to locate the boy Thomas, whose surname they could not even find, and Reid rushed to catch them up, she was alone outside the room, still looking right at Eoin McMahon.

And so she swallowed deeply and looked away, just as Hotch caught her arm and asked her if she was alright for sure. She nodded and told him she would watch the interview from the other side of the glass. He went back to the room, now even more aggravated because of the challenge to his authority by the Chief of Police.

He was still getting nowhere. "What will it take to get you to tell me?" He asked eventually, feeling quite beaten.

"I wanna see that woman outside the door," he said, and instantly Hotch's back rippled and anger flooded his system all over again. He pounded his fist against the table and declared his decision.

"Never."

Emily too was stiffened into non action right outside. But she knew what she had to do. She grabbed the earpiece Rossi had left behind and she pulled the microphone to her lips, talking quietly into it as she normally would.

"I can do this," she said. Aaron, still in the exam room, turned to the window and shook his head softly.

"Trust me," she said, "I need to try."

And so he let her. He nodded, defeated, and then left the room.

"I'm still not sure about this," he said seconds later as she prepared to enter the room.

"I am," she said, "I have to get back on track. I can be the bait, I've done it before. Stop worrying," she finished, and then she was inside.

When she was sitting opposite Eoin McMahon, he was happy to get straight to the point.

"What are you gonna give me if I tell you everything?" he asked malevolently.

"What do you want?" she retorted.

"To see you naked."

"It all depends on what you tell me," she said calmly, keeping her cool. Outside the window, Hotch's mouth dropped open and he sighed. What was she doing?!

But to his surprise, Eoin McMahon told her everything. Entirely caught up in the moment, he let slip.

"Me and Lynch used to go to the docks... And we'd see the girls... And I just wanted to kill them. But he wanted them afterwards... We had a team... The masks were perfect copies of their faces. Two faced whores who deserved to die... Yours would be beautiful... "

His eyes scanned her, totally lost in the pale colouring of her skin and the falling waves of her hair. And then she was gone.

"Thomas Lynch," she said, as soon as she got outside the door. "Thomas Lynch."

And she was shaking miserably, entirely disgusted by another creep who saw women as object and nothing more. Someone who was willing to kill them as vengeance for a basic rejection. Same thing, different day.

Her question now was, could she do this again? Could she really come back to this job? As she listened to Eoin McMahon pounding on the window behind her, she turned away from it, and she felt Hotch wrap a protective arm around her. "Let's go," he said, "It's almost 8pm. We'll pick up Lynch, and then we'll go to a hotel for the night."

It was exactly what she needed. Talking time, fixing time. She needed to fix herself and to know that she was able to continue with this job.

She didn't notice when Lynch was brought in. She didn't even take part in the investigation that found out where he was- though it was pretty easy, and only took Garcia about 50 seconds to work it out. Nonetheless, she had simply sat with JJ, who made her some tea and comforted her while Hotch signed some paperwork and prepared to get his team out of there.

He told them that he wasn't going to have them fly back to Quantico tonight. They would stay in the hotel, and return the following morning.


	22. Chapter Twenty One Music of the Night

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything Criminal Minds related. Characters are merely borrowed and will be put back later. ;)**

**A/N: I am so so so so sorry that you guys have had to wait so long for this. I have been working so much overtime- you honestly would not believe how many hours I have, honestly. I love my job, but sadly other things have had to take a step backwards on the priority stakes, and sadly fanfics are (mildly) less important than Airport Security! :D**

**However, my dearest, deepest thanks to jirrG, who actually mailed me to make sure I was okay. This chapter is just for you, because you're just too nice to me. :D**

**Thank you so much for your patience guys. Enjoy the chappie. :)**

**Suffer and Save**

**Chapter Twenty One- Music of the Night**

***

"_Night-time sharpens, heightens each sensation . . .  
Darkness stirs and wakes imagination . . .  
Silently the senses abandon their defences . . . "_

_From "The Phantom of the Opera"_

***

She felt worse than she had all day. She knew that she had done her job and done it well; but that didn't stop the gritty discomfort filling her stomach and pushing her into a moody silence. Aaron noticed, of course. Even when they were going up in the elevator with the rest of the team, he had noticed. The fact that their rooms were a floor above everyone else's generally meant they would talk alone for the final few seconds. Tonight she said nothing at all.

When he moved closer to her and glanced at her before pressing the button to close the door after Morgan left, he said nothing to her, merely told Morgan to be downstairs and ready to leave at 9 the following morning. Doubtless Strauss would want meetings and reports about Emily's actions and evaluations of her work throughout the case. It aggravated him that Strauss would be so pedantic and precautionary. Did she really still have a grudge against Emily? Even after all this time? Was she honestly still pissed that Emily wouldn't betray her team to further her own career?

Sighing mildly, he watched the doors closing and he immediately looked at Emily again. Her lower lip was trembling. For the first time ever, he wasn't quite sure of what to do. Did she need a second to regain her strength? Or should he do what his instinct wanted him to do, and reach out to help her, however useless such a gesture might be?

He didn't really have time to work it out in his head.

"Em..." was all he murmured, and then she was right next to him, her hands clutching his shirt, the tears finally falling, the stress wearing away as he hugged her tightly.

"I'm sorry," he said, "If I had known it would be so bad... "

All she could do was wait for the tears to subside. And that was going to take some time. Even when the elevator doors opened again, she was glad that nobody else was waiting to get inside. She was alone with him on the corridor, and she was grateful when he wrapped an arm around her and walked with her down the carpet to his room.

He didn't even ask her to go inside with him. He simply reached into his pocket for the key and then slotted it into the door silently, pushing it open and bringing her inside. It took him only seconds to toss their bags in the small table inside the door, and then he just stood with his arms around her for what felt like a minute or so, but in fact was more like half an hour. When she stopped crying, she just stayed where she was, feeling desperately comfortable for the first time all day. It had been a horrible case, truly disgusting. There was no way to reconcile it in her head, and she knew that she likely never would. As bad as all the other cases might be, she had been particularly ill equipped to deal with this one.

Which was why she needed more comfort. With her eyes closed, she seemed to reach for him, her lips tenderly pressing against his jaw, seeking something more. Aaron was, for his part, more than happy to oblige. He felt her relax as soon as his lips brushed against hers, and he was intensely thankful that she trusted him now just about as much as she had before Thomas Randolph. His arms wrapped around her waist, and before he thought about it properly, he was caught in a frenzy of kisses, passionate and desperate, but still warm and loving. It was an odd feeling he couldn't remember having before, a contradiction of what he wanted and what he needed all at once. It was impossible to explain, and he was glad that he might never have to.

He just focused on the moment, and his fingers entwined themselves into her hair, deepening their kisses, pushing them closer together. In just seconds, she had been forceful enough to push him against the wall just a few inches away, and she was pressed right up against him. They both knew where this was going.

"Emily," he half gasped, "Emily!"

"Don't stop," she whispered sharply, "Just don't stop."

So he threw caution to the wind, and kissed her savagely, entirely dominating her and taking control from her in one second. She willingly gave in to him and felt him take charge, letting his power and strength pass over her. She was safe with him. She had no doubts about that now.

That was why she didn't pull away when he slipped her jacket from her shoulders onto the floor. In fact, she just reached for him with more vigour, sweeping her fingers through his hair and kissing him tenderly, pulling him towards her slightly; she tossed his jacket off of his shoulders and didn't resist when he pushed her back again, deeper into the room, his hands cupping her face and kissing her deeply. Emily felt him stumble out of his shoes, and was more than obliging in removing her own, glad to be rid of the high heels for a while, desire rousing her senses and making her reach for him all the more.

She pulled him with her to the bed, where they collapsed into a heap on the duvet. Emily straddled him without really thinking about it, and soon after, she lowered her head and kissed him tenderly, her tongue slowly doing battle with his. She shortly felt the swish of fabric against her skin as he casually pulled her shirt over her head, parting them for a second. He tossed it away and touched his fingers along her skin, adoring the brush of her hair against his face when she leaned over to kiss him again.

He could feel the scars across her back; he refused to ignore them. His fingers traced them and tickled against them, making her blush, but still reassuring her of her attractiveness. She felt over sensitive. She hadn't let him this close in quite some time, so she felt oddly naked and embarrassed. Nonetheless, relishing his fingers against her skin, she reached for his tie and pulled it from him, her fingers making light work of his shirt buttons.

Her nails scrawled against him, and he made his move. He pushed her to one side and left her lying on the bed before crawling over her and kissing her lightly on the lips and cheek, looking right into her eyes.

"We don't have to do this," he whispered to her.

"But I want to do this," she said back immediately, and then she reached her arms up and stripped his shirt from his back with ease.

"I really want to do this," she whispered, when he seemed reluctant. He still didn't move, and Emily reached her hands down, unbuttoning her trousers and pulling down the zip, determined to see this through. She wanted him now more than she had in a very, very long time.

She didn't have to wait long. As soon as her pants were undone, she reached for his belt, and before two minutes had passed, both pairs of trousers were lying on the floor. Emily lifted her legs and tucked them around his hips comfortably, smiling at him and waiting for him to make his move.

Leaning over slightly, he slipped his arms behind her back and lifted her up. His lips met hers in a barrage of kisses, and he found himself nibbling on her lip, gently pulling at her skin, his hands holding her up and pulling her close to him. She felt his lips against her neck, and she was totally lost. He could have done anything to her and she'd not have objected. He turned around and sat on the bed, sitting her on his lap, her legs still tucked around him. His fingers played with the strap of her bra, eventually snapping it open and pulling it from her body.

It took his mouth only a second to make its own decision, and then he had one tight nipple in his mouth, kissing her skin softly and carefully. Her eyes were closed, and she had an unconscious smile on her face as he nibbled on her skin.

And then, quite without warning, Emily felt his hand moving down, slipping underneath the fabric of her panties. She pulled away from him and he stopped immediately. He thought she had finally reached her limit; he was wrong. Emily stood in front of him and pulled her panties from her legs, leaving them on the floor with the rest of the discarded clothing. Then she was on his lap again, her lips pressed against his as his hands pushed his boxers to the floor.

A few brief, hot, tense moments later, she could feel him pushing himself into her slowly, inch by inch. The tingling sensation in her stomach and chest got heavier, and she felt almost drowsy with pleasure.

Aaron could feel her hot breath against his neck, and he ran his hands across her warm skin, delicately brushing against the scars on her back, holding her close to him, her hips pressed directly against his. He felt her rise and fall on top of him, and each time she did it, a rush of blood passed to his head. His fingers clenched against her skin, his lips kissed hers with reckless abandon, and all the while Emily simply let the hot simplicity take over her.

She grinded her hips against him, her eyes closed and her head tossed back. A thin sheen of sweat was proof enough of their efforts , but Aaron still didn't have enough of her. Every time he moved in her, her breasts rose and fell as she caught her breath. She was leaning back, her head still tossed away from him, moaning every few seconds, panting for breath. Her flat stomach was even more taut when she was leaning back, her hands on his knees, holding herself up.

Emily felt his hips roll against hers, and she bit her lip, chewing on the knot of desire that was building in her stomach. His hands moved from her hips to the small of her back, and from there, she felt his fingers lightly move to the front of her body, caressing first her stomach and ribs, before coming to rest on her breasts. He pinched her nipples and listened to her catching her breath each time he did it.

She quickened her pace and he didn't stop her. He gasped for breath right along with her, and then he felt that surge of electricity. He felt her hands press against his chest, and then her mouth was on his, kissing him roughly even as a long moan escaped her lips. Her fingers intertwined across his neck, and he cupped her body softly, pulling her even closer to him, if that were possible, to kiss her softly as the high ebbed away into normality.

Aaron was left panting softly, inhaling the musky scent of her skin, his lips playfully kissing her bare shoulder every few seconds as they both readjusted to a world they'd not visited in quite some time.

After a few breathless minutes, Emily brought her lips back to his, and she brushed her fingers casually through his hair, kissing him gently.

"Thank you," she croaked to him, and even as he whispered into her ear that he loved her, Emily drifted into a quiet, safe and calm sleep.

***

"_Floating, falling, sweet intoxication  
Touch me, trust me, savour each sensation!  
Let __the __dream__ begin, let your darker side give in.."_

_From "The Phantom of the Opera"_

***


	23. Epilogue Hope

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything Criminal Minds related. Characters are merely borrowed and will be put back later. ;)**

**A/N: I am so so so so sorry that this has taken so long. But finally, here is the Epilogue of Suffer and Save. I want to say a big thanks for all the efforts you made to review and to make my days a little bit lighter. Thank you all so much!**

**Enjoy, it's been a total pleasure, start to finish. :)**

**Suffer and Save**

**Epilogue- Hope**

"_Pandora's curiosity overtook her and she opened the lid of the box, releasing a torrent of pain and destruction upon the world. Death, Hunger and Fear pervaded the Earth._

_And yet, at the very bottom of the box, there lay Hope."_

Weeks passed. Emily awoke early one morning and wandered to the window, pulling across the curtains ever so slightly to see Dawn stretching across the sky. Glitters of sunlight touched everything and brought them back to life. She watched the world as it woke up, and smiled benignly to herself.

It had been weeks since she had suffered tumultuous nightmares of suffering and fear. Weeks since she had felt so alone in the world. Weeks since she had felt lost. No matter the cliché, the fact remained- he had saved her absolutely.

Even as she watched the brightening sky, she was warmed by the glow of the sunlight as it forced its way, timidly, quietly, but assuredly, across the landscape towards her. She felt calm, and relaxed, and peaceful.

A whispering movement at her shoulder sparked her into motion, and her head turned. He stood behind her, and as soon as she looked at him, his hands reached around her waist and he kissed the side of her face gently. Without a word, they turned to look back into the day.

Work, would come later. The fact was that Emily was no longer doubted by Erin Strauss- and neither were the decisions Hotchner made. They had, for reasons unknowable, somehow earned her trust. Work was back to the way it once had been- calm (to a degree), and likeable. Emily felt, and she knew Aaron did also, that the team was back to being a family. It was as though the split they had endured in the past few months- all of the changes that had been put in front of them- had simply brought them closer.

Emily knew that there was no such thing as a happy ending. There had been times she had wanted to kill him, and she knew that sometimes she got on his nerves just as easily- but they prevailed. Jack was as happy as any little boy could be, and loved Emily because she made Aaron smile. For her part, whenever he was there Emily felt like a kid again. She loved playing with him, making up stories with him, helping him build amazing structures with lego bricks and fight epic battles with his teddy bears. He didn't need to know about the real world. He had asked her once or twice where the marks on her arms had come from, or why she had been in hospital for a time- but she brushed the questions away with jokes and laughter, reassuring him at all times that she was okay. He didn't need to know about the darkness in the light.

Sighing happily, she leaned back against Aaron and felt the warm strength of him pressing against her. She had once thought that she would never, ever get out of the darkness she had felt after her ordeal. There were still days when she felt very lost and very confused and very darkened.

But then there were times like this, when everything faded into the light and she realised that she had so much to be thankful for- and it was on those days that she knew that her job, often a mixture of Suffer and Save- would never be pleasant, and the rewards would never prevent her from crying. Sometimes that was necessary. Sometimes they cried together and clung to each other in the dark, begging for an absolution that would never come.

But as long as she had him, and as long as she was with him, there was Hope.

Daylight swept into the bedroom and cast its fierce glow onto them. Emily closed her eyes and reached, blindly, for the warm kiss that awaited her.

All the darkness. All the pain and dull, threatening malice. All the Suffering. When the Sun pushed though and she felt Aaron's warm body against hers, they all disappeared.

And just like that, there was Hope.


End file.
